The Project for Public Spaces (PPS), who have been working with UN-HABITAT on sustainable urbanization, describe why establishing public spaces can be even more important to improving the world's slums than providing power or clean water.
When working to improve conditions in the world's informal settlements, the challenges are so extensive and numerous, it's often difficult to know where to start. It turns out that place-making is an effective way to tackle multiple problems at once, as PPS illustrates in a new article explaining the culmination of a decades-long shift in thinking among those developing strategies for sustainable urbanization.
"While perhaps
counter-intuitive at first, considering that many developing-world slums
lack basic necessities like clean water, electricity, and health care,
it turns out that great public spaces are even more important
to places like Nairobi's Kibera and Mumbai's Dharavi, because they allow
many issues to be addressed at once. 'You have to get people to
understand that, when they are planning a city, they have to think
multi-sectorial,' says Thomas Melin, a Head of Habitat's Office of
External Relations. 'If you go into a slum area and you try to sort out
only one thing–the power, the water, etc–it will not help! It might even
make things worse. You have to sort out several basic things in order
to get neighborhoods to work.'"
"'People in Kibera use public spaces very differently from how they
might in, say, New York City,' notes PPS's Cynthia Nikitin, who led a series of Placemaking workshops
in one of Africa's largest slums this past spring through our
partnership with UN-Habitat. 'In New York, ‘public space' translates to a
park, or a plaza. In Kibera, the streets are truly the public spaces,
and people are out all day, every day: selling, begging, trading. People
make their living–they live their lives–right out in the streets.
Having safe and adequate places for that activity is as vital in these
areas as water or electricity.'"
FULL STORY: From Government to Governance: Sustainable Urban Development & the World Urban Forum

Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.

Chicago’s Ghost Rails
Just beneath the surface of the modern city lie the remnants of its expansive early 20th-century streetcar system.

Amtrak Cutting Jobs, Funding to High-Speed Rail
The agency plans to cut 10 percent of its workforce and has confirmed it will not fund new high-speed rail projects.

Ohio Forces Data Centers to Prepay for Power
Utilities are calling on states to hold data center operators responsible for new energy demands to prevent leaving consumers on the hook for their bills.

MARTA CEO Steps Down Amid Citizenship Concerns
MARTA’s board announced Thursday that its chief, who is from Canada, is resigning due to questions about his immigration status.

Silicon Valley ‘Bike Superhighway’ Awarded $14M State Grant
A Caltrans grant brings the 10-mile Central Bikeway project connecting Santa Clara and East San Jose closer to fruition.
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
Caltrans
City of Fort Worth
Mpact (founded as Rail~Volution)
City of Camden Redevelopment Agency
City of Astoria
City of Portland
City of Laramie