Content about Showcases

As New Yorkers, we seldom consider our physical vulnerability on the group of islands that we inhabit, a vulnerability that is increasing as a result of climate change. Nevertheless, weather everywhere, even in Manhattan, has grown more extreme and erratic over the past decade, something many attribute to global warming.  In light of the recent evacuation of Lower Manhattan this past summer with the Hurricane that never happened, the work has particular resonance, serving as a wake-up call for urbanites who don’t think that climate change can affect them.

Several weeks ago, the office of Denver’s Mayor Michael Hancock launched a two-part community engagement strategy to gather public input on important financial issues facing the City of Denver.  A series of public forums put keypad polling devices in the hands of city employees and Denver residents to test the best   ideas for how to address the City’s financial challenges.  The Mayor also unveiled a new participatory budgeting tool encouraging public feedback on key topics relative to fixing Denver’s budget gap. The new interactive tool, Delivering Denver’s Future, gives residents a unique opportunity to weigh in on how to fix the city’s broken budget.

Last week students at Ohio State University sent a survey out asking students and professionals from across the country for their ideas for how they would like to engage with APA and other professional organizations through social media platforms. We received hundreds of really great ideas. Many of the responses focused on creating fun ways to engage around planning topics.

Looking around on articles on the world’s smartest cities, we tend to celebrate the high-tech pioneers implementing large infrastructure or data projects. Smaller cities can play an important role in driving innovation in or near metropolitan areas of a major cities and creating new markets. Sant Cugat (population 80,000, near Barcelona) and Eindhoven (population 213,000, near Amsterdam) are good examples.

I recently met with a local Philly organization that is doing something different that has sparked quite a bit of creativity and cohesion among local neighbors and business owners. Alex Hillman, of Philadelphia’s own Independents Hall (or Indy Hall for short), sat down with me and allowed me to pick his brain about an up-and-coming business movement called Coworking. The concept is surprisingly simple, and the idea is popping up in urban areas everywhere. The best part is, business leaders all over the world are coming to Philadelphia (and more specifically, to Alex at Indy Hall) to see how it’s done right.

What would it be like to measure and publicize the emotions of a city’s dwellers? Would we like what we saw? Would it benefit us? Or in an era of data deluge, are there some things that are simply better left unknown? Well, that really depends on whom you ask. This question was the philosophical heart of an art installation that made a splash a few years ago when it was first installed in Berlin, and later in Lindau, a small town in southern Germany.

Richard Florida has written compellingly about the value of the creative class and the importance of attracting creative people to boost local economies.  And many communities have embraced creative economic development or citizen engagement strategies, making arts part of the downtown landscape or highlighting arts-based non-profits.

As demand for quality environments in our cities continues to increase, more attention is being paid to the opportunity presented by urban revitalisation as a sustainable alternative to broad scale urban renewal. Around the world urban revitalisation is being catalysed by housing, cultural, retail, infrastructure and city centre projects that spur on infill development, adaptive re-use and other local investment.

If you’re walking through New York City’s Chinatown and spot an out-of-the-ordinary cart, you’ll be looking at one of Hester Street Collaborative’s latest projects devoted to using design as a tool for social change.