Steve Davies

Sidewalks

Two Buildings that Build Life: Fostering Sidewalk Social Life in Brooklyn and Paris

A building needs a base, At the street level, buildings with small shops that spill into the public space that has a plaza with a market or double-loaded sidewalk, buildings can come alive. What is outside becomes inside, and what is inside becomes outside.

Public Markets

The Magic of Holiday Markets

As you look at the best markets around the world, they are dynamic year-round destinations in the center for most cities. Bryant Park and Victualen Market in New York City and Munich are prime examples.

Founders and Friends

Remembering Don Miles

Don Miles was a long-time friend of ours and a founding board member of Project for Public Spaces in 1975. He passed away in Seattle on December 2, 2021.

Top Ideas

Discussion: Next Steps for the Global Placemaking Movement

Imagine if the places where we live were shaped for, and from, our social lives, re-imagined to make it easy for us to gather, shop, have fun, eat together, and be around people different from us. we would collectively have an impact on the health of our planet.

Climate Resilience

How Placemaking and Social Life are Helping Win the Climate War - 11 Ways

When it comes to addressing climate change in a way that actually moves the needle, the creativity and community-orientation that always defined the global Placemaking movement can be the foundation for the future of communities everywhere--and for our planet.

Great Public Spaces

Catalytic Places: Public Squares, Part I

What great squares have to offer their communities is limitless. Above all, it's the social life that works in these squares: What are perhaps the most magical parts about these places are the simple, crucial chance encounters that allow us to have with others.

Amenities

Throwing (Good) Shade for Placemaking

Shade can become an intentional strategy — developed with communities, led by communities. If we do it right, the addition of shade in all its forms can have an enormous collective impact on walkability, Social Life, and climate resilience.

Top Ideas

Reconstruyamos Juntos y Mejor: 11 Agendas Transformadoras Para Restaurar La Vida en Nuestra Comunidad

Salvar el planeta depende de recuperar nuestras comunidades

Top Ideas

Build Back Better, Together: 11 Transformative Agendas to Restore Social Life in Your Community

Saving the planet depends on reclaiming our communities.

Great Public Spaces

Driving the Local Food Economy with Social Life: Munich's Victuals Market

The Victuals Market (Viktualienmarkt) in Munich, Germany Central "Market Square" is typical of the historic squares around Europe, showcasing the local commerce, culture and diversity in the center of each city.

Top Ideas

To Save the Planet, Start With the Social Life of Sidewalks

Rich street life is no frill. It is an expression of the most ancient function of a city—a place for people to come together, all kinds of people, face-to-face. — William "Holly" Whyte

Sidewalks

Who Owns the Corner Defines the Social Life of Neighborhoods

You can tell a great city by its corners. If the intersection is owned by the vehicles, it is a city for cars and traffic. If the community controls the intersections/corners, it is a city of neighborhoods.

Streets

Its the Sidewalks, Stupid

Paradigm-shattering change will happen when streets, sidewalks and intersections are transformed into community gathering spots through the simple act of giving human beings priority over motor vehicles.

Public Markets

Social Encounters of 4 Kinds: A Field Guide to Markets

A big reason we enjoy markets are the plentiful opportunities for conversation

Social Life and COVID-19

Building Back Better, Together: 10 Ways to Restoring Social Connections and Local Economies

How do we “tip-toe” our way back to a flourishing social life, capitalizing on local knowledge to make sensible choices about how to reopen our communities by involving local people in the decisions.