In her classic tome, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs eloquently advocated for the importance of sidewalks when she wrote, "Lowly, unpurposeful, and random as they appear, sidewalk contacts are the small change from which a city's wealth of public life must grow." 

More recently, The Social Life Project, has also recognized the importance of sidewalks, identifying them as one of their critical 11 strategies for creating lively and connected places that promote commerce and community.

​During my recent travels to various countries, I had the opportunity to experience and document the state of sidewalks and their impact on street life and sense of place. While I did see some positive examples, overall, I was struck by the inadequate and often unsafe conditions that can stifle street life, not only by reducing walkability, but also by causing fatalities due to the neglect of pedestrian needs. In this article, I will compare, contrast and learn from the world beneath my feet.

During Placemaking Week India, I visited multiple cities and rural areas, and Ethan Kent of PlacemakingX, cleverly observed that a national campaign for sidewalks would greatly benefit the entire country. Indian placemakers repeatedly highlighted the dangers of road traffic and the attitude that if a pedestrian is injured or killed on the roadways, it is considered their own fault. This issue hit close to home when I learned that one of the event producers of Placemaking Week India, Prahtima Manohar, had lost her own cousin in a roadway accident. Despite the often chaotic nature of Indian streets, one positive aspect is the presence of street-side markets offering fresh fruits, vegetables, and beautiful flower arrangements, as well as the mandala art often found on the ground around temples, which helps create special spaces despite the dangers.

The sidewalks in Manila exist, but they are so bad, that they seem like a cruel joke at the expense of the ambling citizens of one of the most populous cities of the world. The footpaths are often narrow strips that are comically interrupted by overgrown trees, redundant electric poles, piles of dirt, and the occasional side hustle.

Street level crossings in the business district are gated off, forcing pedestrians to use elevated crossings or subterranean tunnels in favor of highway speed vehicular prioritization. Philippine placemakers told us that when they advocate for politicians to prioritize walking and biking infrastructure, they often hear the argument that this type of infrastructure is unnecessary because it takes too long to get around on foot. However, as the placemakers point out, this transportation method would be quicker if it were properly prioritized, creating a vicious cycle of circular logic.

Despite the lack of comfortable sidewalks, Manila does invest in floating walkways and ones buried beneath the earth, which may move people around but on monotonous paths that do not contribute to ground-floor vibrancy.

​On the other hand, when you venture out of the urban core into a neighborhood like Punta Santa Ana, you find that the lack of sidewalks leads people to spread out into all parts of the street, creating an almost closed-off street party feel with people doing karaoke and greeting friends and strangers alike with warm affectations. Drivers move slowly and will honk at you to warn of their presence, and it's just a fun and lively place to be where anything seems possible.

Singapore is a wonderful place to walk around, especially in the classic neighborhoods like Tajong Pagar, Chinatown, and Little India, but one issue is the sidewalks are not wide enough to handle the amount of foot traffic. Many of them are covered with colonnade overhangs, an elegantly functional remnant of heritage shophouse architecture, but which makes your walk interrupted by uneven surfaces, as you may have to step down or up unexpectedly, or encounter awkward ramps.

In Little India, people use the sidewalks more than any place in the city: people are sitting everywhere, meeting with friends, taking their shoes off and contemplating the jam between their toes, it's like they're at a beach resort sitting on cabanas, but without any accommodations except for their own square inch of pavement from which to perch.

This sidewalk scuffle seems particularly egregious seeing as Singapore is one of the best case studies for vehicular congestion pricing. Because their nation adopted forward-thinking urban design principles before car ownership had taken hold, they were able to curtail car dominance through a hefty registration fee that prohibits most from driving in favor of other forms of transportation.

This creates the unique and bizarre pedestrian experience of you looking out to a multi-lane road and seeing virtually no car traffic, but then looking at the tiny strip of sidewalk and seeing bodies bumper to bumper and absolutely frustrated.

On the flip side, Singapore also does some really wonderful things with sidewalks that should be recognized. I love their covered walkways which make it easier to go the distance in both rain and extreme sunny conditions. These seem to congregate around transportation as well which make them a good use of resources.

Also, Singapore has created awesome walkways along the Singapore river. A walk along its banks will lead you to multiple commercial and heritage adaptive reutilizations of their historic river quays, and further upstream you find yourself in recreational forests that seamlessly act as permeable rain catchment systems to sustain the city's water supply.

Finally, a refreshing change of pace. The streets in the center of London are a storybook amusement to walk along. You might encounter a vibrant pedestrian square like the fabled Covent Garden area, which is an entire area purged of cars by attractive, antique pushcarts teeming with horticultural displays.

The walk along the banks of the Thames Riverfront is an uninterrupted delight (minus the detour you have to take behind the MI-6 spy headquarters), with deja-vu views of some of the world's most familiar buildings. Architecturally distinct bridges criss-cross the meandering waterway, well-utilized public spaces filled with pop-up markets and temporary art installations buttress your path, and there's even a punctual ferry service powered by Uber to use when your feet start to ache. Unfortunately, this area is quite expensive, luxury-driven and still owned by royal families and the literal aristocracy, but there's something to glean here from the sound proportions and giddy feelings of all the paserrbys.

Placemakers working to implement the World Health Organization's Age-friendly Cities Framework in San Juan, Costa Rica's capital, shared their concerns about the status of their sidewalks. According to locals, the policy in place means that each property owner is responsible for maintaining the section of sidewalk in front of their property. While one could optimistically hope this would lead to creative solutions and a pride of ownership, it instead results in a patchwork of inconsistent materials, grades, and conditions, making walking a challenging and uncomfortable experience for many, particularly for the elderly community.

Japan is known for its excellent food, trains, and courteous culture, but when it comes to sidewalks, they are falling short these days. During my visit, I noticed a significant increase in the use of bicycles since I was here just before the pandemic. This is great to see, however, Japanese bicyclists are encouraged to ride on the sidewalks, which can make walking a chaotic and dangerous experience. As you're walking down the sidewalk, bicyclists unexpectedly appear, weaving in and out of pedestrians, leaving them spinning in their wake. At night, their bright lights shine in your face, making it difficult to see. It's obvious that Japan is at a critical juncture where the demand for cycling illustrates that it is ready to become a cycling culture like Amsterdam or Copenhagen, but ridership will likely not grow without addressing this backwards approach to placing cyclists and pedestrians at odds.

I hope you enjoyed this brief trip around the world. I think it illustrates the universal role sidewalks play in the livability and vitality of a city and how regions can be strong in some aspects of delivering great sidewalks, and weak in others. Here's a few tips from the observations made through this journey:

In conclusion, the importance of sidewalks in cities cannot be overstated. From the bustling streets of India to the patchwork sidewalks of San Juan, it is clear that sidewalks play a vital role in the livability and connectness of a community. Adequate size, maintenance and consistency, comfort, and accessibility are all key factors in creating safe and enjoyable sidewalks for everyone. Furthermore, incorporating unique features such as street level crossings, sidewalk marketplaces, and shared roadways can enhance the overall experience and create a sense of community. I'll see you on the sidewalk.

The Khmer Rouge genocide caused a mass refugee exodus out of Cambodia that made Long Beach, California home to the largest number of Cambodian people outside of their home country. This underserved diaspora living in central Long Beach is emerging into a thriving neighborhood and business community despite having to fight for access to resources and for environmental, political, linguistic, and economic inclusion.

At the heart of the district is The MAYE Center, a unique culture and healing center housed in a 100-year old carpenter-style bungalow on a very busy commercial corridor, making it a sort of open house for trauma-informed community health and healing. Before COVID-19, this sanctuary provided a social space, yoga and meditation, on-site farm and gardens, meal-sharing, and even acted as a small business incubator.

Flint Placemaking Week took place September 2021 and brought placemakers from 25 states across the country to meet community leaders, explore issues and grow in our placemaking practice together.

Mural Walking Tour
​As placemakers arrived from all over the country, our first introduction to Flint was a Mural Walking Tour of Carriage Town and Downtown hosted by Director of Placemaking for What's Up Downtown Flint, Kady Yellow. Kady explained the differences of street art, graffiti and murals and showcased the stories behind some of Flint's earliest murals, an outdoor art collection worth more than $1 million according to Kady's own research.

Orientation to Flint
​We next planned to host our Orientation to Flint outside at the Riverbank Park Amphitheater, but the weather had other plans and we stuffed into the Mott Room at the Hilton Garden Inn to hear about Flint's history as the birthplace of the automobile industry, demographics that revealed the low-income and formal education achievements in Flint, and an introduction to the Flint Water crisis by local water entrepreneur Alex Love, the Neighborhood Engagement Hub's Carma Lewis, The Porch Project's Meghan Heyza and place advocate and urbanist Cade Surface.  

Opening Party - Cohort Gathering
Following Orientation, our groups divided into cohorts based on their expertise and interest and headed off to dinner at Cork on Saginaw. It was a lively venue for discourse and initiating warm connections, especially with the urging of Tetia Lee for all to enjoy a Tequila shot and for Kady Yellow's gracious offering of a champagne flute to all upon arrival. Groups sat by interests including: Downtown Management, Connecting Neighborhoods, Healthy Placemaking, Creative Placemaking, Makers of the New Economy, and Streets for People.

Opening Morning at GM Factory #1
We opened Placemaking Week officially at the iconic birthplace of General Motors. The Mayor of Flint welcomed us along with Placemaking Poet, Frankie McIntosh. Kady Yellow of What's Up Downtown Flint introduced us to her placemaking journey and showed the resident-lead work she has been supporting. Ryan Smolar of Placemaking US and Amy Stelly of the Claiborne Avenue Alliance in New Orleans utilized the historic venue to talk about the relationship between cars and automobile infrastructure and livability, sociability and interconnectedness of our neighborhoods.  Moses Timlin, from the Genesee County Land Bank showed us the healthy placemaking he'd been a part of in the Carriage Town neighborhood we were in and Leslie Mattie-Rich of Westwood Works in Cincinnati showed us how she built back up her own neighborhood with programming and ultimately redesigning their central square. Sherryl Muriente shared insights from her international career participating in innovative practices like archaeology of place and urban acupuncture. 

Healthy Placemaking Luncheon and Makers and the New Economy 
Due to the rain, we had to pivot two afternoon engagements into an impromptu venue: a maker space right down the street from GM Factory #1 which is cheekily called Factory 2. This venue ended up being apropos, because it showed-off a juxtaposition in thinking from organizing big capital (like at GM in the 20th century) to fostering community capital and social capital as a basis for local industry. The Healthy Placemaking panel explored the expansive relationship between place and health, and the ways placemakers are building opportunities for places and people to be healthier from physical activity to mental  health, safety from violence and access to economic and education opportunity. 

"The number one determinant of health is your zip code," stated Hanna Love, a researcher at the Bass Center for Transformative Placemaking at the Brookings Institute. Meghan Heyza of the Porch Project shared how she does participatory research with populations, not on them, but with them, by building long-time relationships with people whose health outcomes she is hoping to improve. Molly Baskin graduated from a crowdfunding placemaking program that helped her launch outdoor step exercise classes at Downtown Flint's iconic Brush Park. She shared how her public-facing Curvy Girl Fitness classes expand the idea of what healthy looks like by showing-off many body types on their journey for health with an enticing collective energy.

The Makers and the New Economy session was supposed to take place as a walking tour pointing out sites relevant to our discussion, but we had to hang back at Factory 2 due to extreme weather outside. Tony Vu, a local food entrepreneur pivoted us from the Healthy Placemaking session into the Makers and the New Economy session because his story straddled the fence between the two topics.

Tony has a kitchen stall at the Flint Farmers Market and he has a food trailer. With this lightweight infrastructure, he makes his permits and facilities and industry know-how available to up-and-coming food purveyors. Through a pipeline system Tony has designed, he helps home chefs and budding roadside entrepreneurs to take steps towards opening their own food businesses.  While Tony has hacked together his current setup under the name The Flint Social Club, he has big plans to build out an entire food hall on the Flint River which was just awarded $375,000 from the State of Michigan.

The adjacency of these sessions was great because as the Healthy Placemaking was wrapping up, the points were centering around personal responsibility and access to education and jobs. As the economy session kicked-off, the importance of supporting local entrepreneurship was further explored.

Jane Jacobs' idea of "import replacement:" replacing what is bought from afar with local makers and products was discussed as well as the importance of event-driven "market-making." Barriers to entry like the obstruction of permits, fees and paperwork were lamented for keeping so many from creating more. After the session, Jaime Izurieta, an urban planner focused on economics and small business culture wrote a paper, "Fred and Barney Walk into a Bar," on his experience in Flint and the idea for a local currency, Flintcoin to take shape and keep money circulating in the local economy. One attendee shared how his local pedicab company has run on a "pay what you will" model, which has allowed his business to grow to four times the size of his stiff-priced competitor.

Connecting Neighborhoods - Bus Ride Part 1
​When reaching out to local Flint neighborhood leaders and placemakers, they made it clear that they were very interested in having us come see and support their work. Jane Richardson met us in the rain along with her neighbors who have heroically lead the creation of the MLK Peace Garden along Martin Luther King Avenue on the former site of 10 vacated house lots which were demolished after years of abandonment by the Genesee County Land Bank, the country's first "land bank" and owner of over 20% of the property in Flint, Michigan.

Connecting Neighborhoods - Bus Ride Part 2
On the ride back to downtown, we detoured down Caniff Street where Meghan Heyza has helped build over a dozen porches for neighbors as social spaces that help reintegrate the neighborhood. Meghan built so many relationships and porches as part of her Porch Project on these blocks, that several partners came together to host a Porchfest with multiple placemaker production partners placing bands on the porches while visitors watched from couches placed in the street.

Exploring Flint for an Evening
We couldn't get enough of Flint's interesting nightlife on Wednesday night. We started off at Blacksone's where Eclipse Band set the night on fire. Esteemed members of Flint's emerging hip hop scene like Jeff Skigh and the creative talent surrounding him stopped in to meet with the placemakers before all headed off to Flint Hard Cider Co for karaoke and cider made from local orchards.

Group Check-in and Placemaking Network Chat
We started off the morning with Kady Yellow asking all about their "top moment" so far. Answers varied from the Opening Session at GM #1 when we actively defined "What is Placemaking?" to Kady's welcome Mural Walking Tour and meeting the ladies of the MLK Peace Garden in the rain. Afterwards, Ethan Kent, leader of the global PlacemakingX networks gave a history of his participation in the placemaking movement and the current strategy to network placemakers to continue to innovate and popularize the ideas behind civic lead place development and management. Ryan Smolar of PlacemakingUS also spoke briefly regarding the Roadtrip to the Recovery in which he visited over 100 placemakers embedded in 60 cities to talk about their work and to encourage them to seek support from American Rescue Plan Act local funding. He explained how Flint Placemaking Week was constructed to build stronger connections between each of us to be able to help forward the field of placemaking across the US and beyond through our connection with the entire PlacemakingX family.

Downtown Management Luncheon
Flint's downtown is re-emerging as the city's central creative core of activity. We invited Flint's new Downtown Development Authority Executive Director, Kiaira May, to connect Flint's downtown-focused departments and players with visiting experts from across Michigan and beyond. Visiting downtown leaders shared how inspired they were by the Flint community's participation and self-direction and reinforced that the chief job of those in downtown power positions is to build relationships, gather resources and support access of downtown as an equitable community asset. Cathleen Edgerly of Downtown Lansing Inc has invited all the Downtown of Michigan present to keep in touch and form a network to support each others' efforts.

Creative Placemaking
The Creative Placemaking cohort did not disappoint. They entered the room with high energy and rock anthem accompaniment and the spirit came alive in Comma Bookstore and Social Hub, one of the nation's few black woman-owned independent bookstores. Practitioners like Patrick Fisher of Erie Arts & Culture showcased how the arts can be a major leader in equity, in housing and in all fields of social life. Jerin Sage, the local creative mind behind Flint Drop Fest shared his alloted time with fellow community placemakers who he met way back at an early urban garden project they did together under the collective name, Peace Mob.  Famed Flint Public Art Project maestro Joe Schipani showed-up and was able to coordinate some artist exchange with fellow mural project leader Tetia Lee from Lafayette, Indiana and we were serenaded by poems by both Frankie McIntosh and Nic Custer.

Closing Party - The Three Floor Discoteca
Kady Yellow engaged the local creative community and small businesses to throw a stellar farewell for all of the placemakers. A "3-Floor Discoteca" was what she called it and it was a stacked house of charcuterie and jazz and poetry in Cafe Rhema's speakeasy space on the ground floor, a drum circle and psychedelic space on the second floor photographer's studio and a DJ-bump and grind popup night club on the third floor for those who dared to enter. Locals and visitors got another chance to learn about each other's work and side hustles, like Sherry Muriente's interesting guerilla art project, Dudali.

Closing Tours - Off to Detroit
Unfortunately, our Friday morning kayaking tour of the Flint River had to be cancelled due to the rains during the week. Instead, a Flint art gallery tour and a side trip to Detroit were offered. Several placemakers piled into two cars heading down from Vehicle City to Motor City and took a tour of Downtown Detroit's famous public spaces like Campus Martius and emerging spaces like  Capitol Park and with longtime placemanager Bob Greggory.

Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada -- I couldn't imagine a more illusive place to start a national roadtrip in which my aim is to focus placemakers on the $350 billion jackpot local governments have struck with the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). 

As I ponied up to Las Vegas Boulevard, a designated All-American Road renowned for its world-famous glitz-and-glamour, I found the place not shuttered, but propped backed up and completely booming: American's liveliest Main Street was back, packed with crowds consuming foot-long frozen drinks under kleig lights infinitely up-lighting the dark desert sky. The hustle-and-bustle was a jarring awakening from my self-isolated slumber. Was COVID over? Was it all a dream? Was I just hallucinating off the vape smoke lingering in the air? In the distance, I could see the skylines of New York, the Eiffel Tower and a Great Pyramid -- all on the same street. And there were people there from everywhere too, except maybe Las Vegas itself. I was drowning in a shopping-frenzied fantasy land, detached from reality, and I remember saying something like, "what a beautifully tragic analogy for the American mindset of the recovery: checked-out with their checkbooks out!"

Considering the assembled, I bet that the best use of my time while visiting this national spectacle of sin, was to spread our message wide and far by talking with visitors who'd been drawn to the the Boulevard's bright lights from cities and towns across the US. Starting outside the Mirage Hotel's famous Volcano fountain show, right where Vegas' red-hot growth of the last 30 years ignited, I collided with a couple from a small, suburban town near Kansas City. They were on their honeymoon: an "around the world" trip where they'd be visiting Paris, Venice and Bellagio, Italy without leaving "the Strip." 

As I shared the American Rescue Plan Act with them, the facts were quick to sink in, and they didn't have to take a leap into the deep end to tell me that they'd like to see funds used to fix their local community pool, a beloved gem that's been shut down since 2018 due to COVID and a pesky leak (read, potential capital improvement project mayhaps?). 

Outside Sigrfried & Roy's Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat, I met two women from the Pacific Northwest and I schooled them on ARPA funds that will be coming down the pike. One of them was a teacher from Bellingham, Seattle who wanted to see funds go towards creating learning opportunities for children. Her friend from Bend, Oregon was concerend with housing for the homeless. I asked them both to pledge that they would write a letter to their electeds and they pinky sweared.

​Later at the hotel, a Latino family was swimming in the kidney-shaped pool. I dove right in and started chatting with them about their experience with the pandemic and thoughts on recovery. They were from Albuquerque, New Mexico. The patriarch, Ivan, owned an auto repair shop there, but he was curious about moving to California after I told him it's where I'm from. He cited liking his rapid commute in Albuquerque, but he was curious to live somewhere with a higher quality of life and more things to do. I asked him what he thought his city needed with ARPA funds in mind, and he painted the picture of an Albuquerque where anyone could get job training leading to gainful appointment.

I went to bed that night excited that I'd had great dicussions with people from so many corners of America in one nigh, but I realized I hadn't met anyone on the Strip from Vegas proper. 

I spent some additional time the next day connecting with the locals, some contacts I had in the community -- an immigration lawyer, an architect and an artist/professor. ​

The immigration lawyer and I met in a wealthy suburb of Vegas at a lifestyle center that was a manufactured replication of Tivoli, a town in Italy. He explained that the American immigration courts had recently re-opened and were already jam-packed and crazy just like before. It was discouraging to hear a system that wasn't working great before went right back to business as usual. I wondered, "Is there still an opportunity to pivot systems like immigration and placemaking or was COVID just a long burp in the middle of bad meal?"

My architect friend couldn't meet-up. His tias were in town for his cousin's quincinera and they were at the park enjoying time together after the long year apart. Pity, I would have loved to debate the merits and foibles of fabrications like Tivoli Village and heard about his latest project, the world's largest guitar-shaped building.

I met instead with an artist who works with the university arts department and has had work publically displayed in funkily-rehabilitated arts district. She did not know about the ARPA funds and said the local arts community was small and well-connected to each other, but was lacking some key institutional players like an art museum or contemporary collector base. She said the Desert Art Collective, a grassroots group doing things outside the city might have some interesting ideas. Something we'd hear a lot of down the road: that the creatives are fleeing traditional venues in favor of the fringes where the costs and permission thresholds were much lower than in capital-driven cities.

The next morning I went to see the work of Meow Wolf, the urber-hip artist-lead, fantasy environment-builders of immersive Instagram-worthy experiences. Their Vegas location is called Omega Mart which utilizes the common metaphor of the supermarket to illustrate society's individualistic love of consumerism and the tendency of corporations, like Omega Mart's fictitious Dramcrop parent company, to overreach into our lives such that we're helpless but to find salvation in a box, a bottle or a purchase.

​Lo! We've packed our bags, loaded-up the placemobile and left Southern California for a three month roadtrip across America. Along the way, we're connecting with placemakers in 50+ cities and talking with everday folk to promote that 'people and places' play a part in our country's pandemic recovery.

Carpe Loci

Our motto is Carpe Loci, to "seize the place" in this rare moment when the status quo has been temporarilyy disrupted by COVID at the same time that $350 billion dollars has become available for community restoration.

This windfall of federal cash has breached the dam in Washington DC and is flowing fast and fierce to our states, counties and cities. While a lot of this money is going directly to help people and businesses with immediate assistance and to replenish depleted local government accounts, there is a large amount left in the till which needs more community involvement if it's end results are to live up to the White House's ideals for this money to "build back better" as opposed to "business as usual."

PlacemakingUS recognizes this moment and we are spreading the message far and wide across the land: we want the American Recovery to celebrate the old placemaker adage that, “Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.”

What would it look like if every human could help co-create their environment to make their world a better place?

Our strategy is to learn and spread how placemakers across the country are tackling problems and finding solutions. We're starting to call this their placemaker superpowers, that niche where they have natural proclivities, exhaustive experience and a passion to help others. On our recovery roadtrip, we hope to connect with you to learn about your superpowers and help spread your secrets to success across the country. 

What's your placemaking superpower?

We want to look forward to visiting your town as much as we are excited to visit:

•  Denver where Zeppelin Development is tackling the future of offices and what place-based, human-centric workplace looks could like without restraint. 
• Boston, we'll learn how to go from  "Vacancy into Vibrancy" with pop-up placemaking by CultureHouse that leads to revitilized spaces for a balance of community and commerce. 
• State College, Pennsylvania, we'll learn from 3 Dots Downtown about co-locating public and private live and work spaces to generate innovation.
• New York City, we'll be bolstering discussions and visions for Open Streets.
• Birmingham, Alabama, we'll learn from Elevators on 4th about Entrepreneurship as Equity by exploring black supply chains and micro-enterprise opportunities in Red Mountain Park.
• And on and on and on from there. 

We hope we will connect with you along the way and create a meaningful interaction that helps imbue locals to get the people and places they love prioritized in their town's take on the American Rescue Plan. Keep checking here and on Instagram and our Facebook Group to see what we're learning and. 

As the United States emerges from the pandemic, PlacemakingUS is checking in on cities and towns across the land to help ensure that people and places remain at the heart of the American recovery. We're going on a national whistle-stop tour to make sure placemakers are well-equipped and networked in their locales to utilize this incredible moment. We're taking this massive trip to diffuse innovation and promote the creation of authentic places and to help ensure post-pandemic urbanism has something for everyone, because it is created by everyone.​ 

PlacemakingUS is inviting everyone to participate in the fun of this roadtrip. If we're coming to your town, please get in touch so we can connect. We've listed a bunch of ways to get involved with the trip on our Summer Recovery Roadtrip headquarters page. You can drive along with us, host a meetup with us or even help sponsor the trip. Please help us hook in with your community in a meaningful way.

​We started PlacemakingUS at 2019's International Placemaking Week with a mission to bring together placemakers from US cities and around the world.

We were inspired by the launches of Placemaking Europe, Placemaking Asia and a dozen other regional placemaking networks that span the globe in collaboration through PlacemakingX.

Since Covid-19 struck in 2020, we quickly dashed our in-person plans for Placemaking Festivals in Portland, Long Beach and Philadelphia, and pivoted towards online interactions including webinars, international placemaking "tool tests," Zoom workgroups, in-person check-ins when safe, and we even commissioned a series of volunteer cross-country projects.

​Facing an incredibly unique set of circumstances in our first full-year, we are excited to share the work that was done towards our goal of fostering a network to bring US-based placemakers together to spread innovations and support and share in the good work from across the country and around the globe.

Please take a moment to read about the activities and interactions the network is fostering and the cool programs and projects that we were able to collaborate on, learn and share together. We look forward to working with you in 2021 to continue and build upon this exciting momentum. 

​PlacemakingUS recently connected some resident placemakers via phone who have been having trouble getting a holler-back from their respective City Halls.

These are neighborhood leaders, the kinda folks who organize neighborhood clean-ups and trunk-or-treats, follow-up with city staff to thank them and act as the eyes and ears of code enforcement.

These leaders gathered to gripe that they try and do as much for their neighborhoods as they can, but they can't seem to get quality, timely responses from the public realm, city-responsible departments like Public Works and Planning when they need them.

Even when they elevate issues, and call their representatives or their staffers, they still can't get a holler-back these days. They're frustrated. They're ready to give-up. And we can't have that, because it's the agency of these small actors who help prop up every special square of urban fabric.

So we got a few of them together and they spit-balled what's worked and what hasn't. Here are some of the juicier morsels: