Renewing Newcastle

Newcastle, Australia's downtown business district lacked street life and was littered with empty buildings. A "Renew Newcastle" campaign brought new life and new residents. PPS talks with the man behind the plan.

1 minute read

February 14, 2011, 8:00 AM PST

By Tim Halbur

Marcus Westbury reveals his secrets for downtown revitalization in this interview. Westbury says that aesthetics should take a back seat to creating "new dynamics that generate more interesting and engaging public spaces."

Westbury: "The Renew Newcastle model is to constantly provide new spaces for experimentation and incubation- as we have done more than 60 times already. Some of those projects will succeed some will fail, but the point is to unleash experimentation. Our role will expand and contract with the number of empty spaces available – some of our project will be there in 10 years time but many probably won't be."

FULL STORY: How Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper Interventions Can Catalyze City-Wide Renewal

Sunday, February 13, 2011 in Project For Public Spaces

Land Use Australia downtown revitalization

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