Places in the Making: How Placemaking Builds Places and Communities About DUSP
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Places in the Making: How placemaking builds places and communities About DUSP Since its founding 80 years ago, the Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) at MIT has consistently been rated the premier planning school in the world. We are home to the largest urban planning faculty in the United States and enjoy the advantage of operating within the context of MIT’s culture of innovation and interdisciplinary knowledge creation. Our mission is to educate students while advancing theory and practice in areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the twenty-first century. DUSP is committed to generating and disseminating knowledge, and to working with communities, governments, and industry to bring this knowledge to bear on the world’s most pressing challenges. We provide our students with an education that combines rigorous academic study and the excitement of discovery with active engagement in the practice of placemaking. Our goal is to apply advanced analysis and design to understand and solve pressing urban and environmental problems. To this end, the department fosters a culture of learning by doing, while also supporting the development of influential theories in the areas of urban planning and design, economic development, and environmental policymaking. By complementing more traditional seminars with studios, workshops, and practice, our faculty, students, and researchers are able to translate path-breaking ideas into practical and enduring solutions. www.dusp.mit.edu Places in the Making: How placemaking builds places and communities MIT DEPARTMENT OF URBAN STUDIES AND PLANNING Susan Silberberg Katie Lorah, CONTRIBUTING CO-AUTHOR 1 2 Rebecca Disbrow, CASE STUDY CONTRIBUTIONS Anna Muessig, CASE STUDY CONTRIBUTIONS Aaron Naparstek, SPECIALADVISOR 3 4 5 © Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2013 COVER PHOTO CREdits 1. Photo courtesy of San Jose Guerrero Coalition to Save our Streets 2. Eastern Market, Detroit, MI 3. Discovery Green, Houston, TX Photo courtesy of ©Erion Shehaj / Flickr, Creative Commons license: bit.ly/20auq This research was made possible by the generous support of Southwest Airlines 4. Corona Plaza, Queens, NY 5. Bryant Park, New York, NY This white paper can be viewed and downloaded at Photo courtesy of ©asterix611 / Flickr, http://dusp.mit.edu/cdd/project/placemaking Creative Commons license: bit.ly/20auq Today’s placemaking represents a comeback for community. The iterative actions and collaborations inherent in the making of places nourish communities and empower people.5 Susan Silberberg An accomplished city planner, urban designer, for over ten years. Susan’s planning research most recent publication is “Pretext securitiza- architect, author and educator, Susan Silber- and academic endeavors at MIT have been tion of Boston’s public realm after 9/11: Motives, berg is Lecturer in Urban Design and Planning supported by national foundations and com- actors and a role for planners” in Policing Cities: in the Department of Urban Studies and Plan- petitive research grants. As Associate Director Securitization and Regulation in a 21st Century ning at MIT. She is the Founder and Managing of the MetLife Innovative Space Awards, World (Routledge, 2013). Currently, Susan is Director of CivicMoxie, LLC, a planning, urban Susan worked with over 100 arts and cultural completing a book on Artists’ Engagement with design, and strategic placemaking group with organizations nationwide to identify best Community with groundbreaking insights for experience in serving municipalities, not for practices for creating affordable artist space funders, developers, community advocates, arts profits, corporations, developers, foundations, and engaging with community. She has also organizations, and artists. Prior to founding Civ- and community groups. Susan is sought after served as the Associate Director of the North- icMoxie, LLC Susan was Senior Vice-President for her ability to identify savvy solutions for east Mayors’ Institute on City Design. of Community Partners Consultants, Inc. and cities, businesses, and communities facing Senior Planner and Urban Designer at Goody, complex challenges. In her research, Susan’s writings on security and Clancy & Associates. She has a Master in City public space have advanced understanding of Planning degree from MIT and a Bachelor of At MIT, Susan developed the urban design how counterterrorism concerns post-9/11 have Architecture from Pratt Institute. curriculum for and has taught the “Revitaliz- shaped our public realm in the context of private ing Urban Main Streets” practicum workshop and public sector pressures and motivations. Her www.susansilberberg.com Katie Lorah Rebecca Disbrow Anna Muessig CONTRIBUTING CO-AUTHOR CASE STUDY CONTRIBUTIONS CASE STUDY CONTRIBUTIONS Katie Lorah is a recent graduate of MIT’s Rebecca holds a Master in City Planning degree Anna Muessig is an urban planner, proj- Department of Urban Studies and Plan- from MIT and a BA in Environmental Psychol- ect manager, and researcher. Her master’s ning, where her work focused on urban ogy from the University of Michigan. Rebecca’s thesis, “The Re-Industrial City” investigated design and strategies for community MIT graduate thesis, on the economic viability successful urban manufacturing hubs. Anna’s engagement. Prior to coming to MIT, she of micro units, won the program’s outstand- previous research projects include “The Min- served as communications director for ing thesis award for 2013. Rebecca’s research neapolis Creative Index” written for the City of the nonprofit Friends of the High Line includes work on New York housing econom- Minneapolis, and “Why Artist Spaces Matter in New York City. She has helped build ics, micro units, placemaking, and cohousing. II”, written with Metris Arts Consulting. Prior, public communications and organizational Prior to attending MIT, Rebecca worked for Anna co-founded the public art organization strategy for a variety of nonprofit and social Bryant Park Corporation and the 34th Street Nuit Blanche New York and was a fundraising enterprise projects and organizations. She Partnership as an Operations Analyst and in professional for Creative Time and Foundation holds a BA in planning and journalism from their Capital Projects department. She also for Contemporary Arts. Anna holds a Master NYU’s Gallatin School, and is originally previously worked for the Southwest Detroit in City Planning degree from MIT and a BA in from Seattle, Washington. Business Association, a BID in Detroit. Urban Studies from Vassar College. Aaron Naparstek, SPECIAL ADVISOR Aaron Naparstek is the founder of Streets- As an activist and community organizer in in the use of social media for advocacy and blog, an online publication providing daily New York City, Naparstek’s advocacy work political action. coverage of transportation, land use and has been instrumental in developing new environmental issues. Launched in 2006, public plazas, citywide bicycle infrastructure, Currently living in Cambridge, Massachu- Streetsblog has played a significant role in improved transit service and life-saving setts with his wife and two sons, Naparstek transforming New York City transportation traffic-calming measures. completed a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard’s policy and galvanizing a Livable Streets Graduate School of Design in 2012 and is now movement that is pushing for a more peo- Most recently, Naparstek co-founded two based at MIT’s Department of Urban Studies ple-centered, less automobile-oriented ap- new organizations that are working to and Planning as a Visiting Scholar. He has a proach to transportation planning and urban transform New York’s political landscape, Masters of Science from the Columbia Uni- design in communities across North America StreetsPAC.org and ReinventAlbany.org. He versity Graduate School of Journalism and a and around the world. speaks and works with local livable streets Bachelor of Arts from Washington University activists around the country and trains them in St. Louis, Missouri. Acknowledgements As with any project of this scope, many people were involved during many different stages (just like a placemaking project!). First and foremost, Aaron Naparstek gets a big thank you for bringing this project to MIT’s door and for providing expertise to the team on all things placemaking. His knowledge of the field and the players, as well as his insights, were invaluable during the research. The three MIT research assistants on this project were much more than that…they were active partners in our journey to explore the current state of placemaking and they contributed greatly to the team’s discussions and debates. Rebecca Disbrow, Katie Lorah, and Anna Muessig were the contact points for the case studies as they traveled far and wide this summer. They wrote up their findings and interviews and offered continuous feedback and input. I would especially like to thank Katie Lorah for her contribution to the writing of this paper. MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning deserves mention here as well. Under the leadership of Eran ben Jo- seph, we received all the support we could possibly want. Thanks DUSP! A handful of gratitude is also extended to everyone at Project for Public Spaces© for their assistance to us and for providing some of the beautiful images in this paper. Fred Kent, Ethan Kent, Cynthia Nikitin, Philip Winn, Elena Madison, and Natalia Radywyl gave generously of their time and resources to impart some of the collective wisdom