PlacemakingX

Please help us welcome The Place Institute! Founded and led by PlacemakingX board member Guillermo Bernal, the Institute is poised to facilitate the #placemaking movement and #PlacemakingX leaders towards greater action and impact. The Place Institute will also be supported by PlacemakingX leaders and board members Peter Smith, Cecilia Martínez Leal, Giselle Sebag, MPH, LEED AP ND, Ramon Marrades, Viviana Cordero, Ethan Kent, Andrea Terán Orlich, Camila Sánchez Ortiz, Victoria Pennacchio, Pongpisit Huyakorn, Carlos Zimbrón, Rodrigo Saval, Ángel Carlo Alcaraz Muñuzuri, with an invitation for additional “Action Board Members.”

Should Auld Social Life Be Forgot? 🎶 Team Social Life Project Reflects on Our Favorite Articles of the Year: https://lnkd.in/e6jxsgXm Reflections and article recommendations by Fred Kent, Tayana Panova, PhD, Giselle Sebag, MPH, LEED AP ND, Guillermo Bernal, Katherine A. Peinhardt, Steve Davies, Ethan Kent, Meg Bradley, Josh Kent and #KathyMadden. PlacemakingX #Placemaking #PublicSpace

Did you know our shared public spaces can foster joy, happiness, pleasure and social connection? In 2025, together with the Social Life Project, I’m excited to delve deeper into the historic roots of creating places that cultivate joy, understand our cultural abandonment of them, and rediscover the indispensable power of placemaking for happiness, fun and social life, ensuring that our communities not only survive but thrive.

The holidays are a great time to reconnect with our families, our communities, and our planet. Disconnection from these most important parts of our lives underly so many of our society's most persistent challenges. From social isolation and political division, to the dominant development pattern of "place taking" and the ensuing environment degradation, #placemaking is an antidote. Reconnecting to places and placemaking, starting through our families and communities, is the only way we're going to be able to sustain humanity's larger crucial relationships to people and places. We look forward to charting this path together in the New Year, and at our upcoming PlacemakingX/Placemaking Canada #GlobalPlacemakingSummit: https://lnkd.in/e89Qj8mE My Social Life Project article selection of 2024: https://lnkd.in/eEvtiut9

Support #publicspace and #placemaking globally by supporting the work of PlacemakingX and Social Life Project: https://lnkd.in/deid4S_Z Our work is entirely funded by donations and being hired to give talks, trainings and strategic planning.

Participate in Project for Public Spaces' survey of #PublicSpace and #Placemaking professionals! The organization from which we founded the global placemaking movement is inviting public space professionals, including planners, designers, place managers, artists, researchers, activists, and others to participate in this survey. Your insights will help us better understand the current state of public spaces, including the challenges we face and the exciting opportunities ahead! We are excited to have PPS Co-Executive director Nathan Storring discuss the results of the survey at the #GlobalPlacemakingSummit, taking place in his native Toronto. As a “thank you” for participating in the survey, you will have the opportunity to enter a drawing for a chance to win a copy of one of PPS's popular books, The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces or How to Turn a Place Around (valued at $35). All responses will remain anonymous unless contacted directly for permission. Respond here by December 31st: https://lnkd.in/esKiAbvt #PlaceManagement #PublicSpaces #PlaceGovernance

Joy to our public spaces! The best public spaces enable people to experience and express joy. Whether we see the joy of others, or are outwardly sharing our own, when we find joy in public it can grow a virtuous cycle of joy for all. Creating public spaces for joy is not just a luxury or privilege, or even necessarily something to achieve after other basic needs are achieved. Joy can be a force for equality, crucial social connections, and healing. Many lower income communities have public spaces that support great amounts of joy, often at minimal costs, while many upscale communities rarely have pleasure in the public realm in spite of expensive design and ample resources. Joy also can be a form of authentic cultural and political power, even protest. When marginalized or minority groups participate in joyous activities in public they often feel and project acceptance. Human joy is contagious, when shared in public spaces it brings us together, melts barriers, and lifts us all up. Happy holidays from the Social Life Project and PlacemakingX.

Joy to our Public Spaces The best public spaces enable people to experience and express joy. Whether we see the joy of others, or are outwardly sharing our own, when we find joy in public it can grow a virtuous cycle of joy for all. Creating public spaces for joy is not just a luxury or privilege, or even necessarily something to achieve after other basic needs are achieved. Joy can be a force for equality, crucial social connections, and healing. Many lower income communities have public spaces that support great amounts of joy, often at minimal costs, while many upscale communities rarely have pleasure in the public realm in spite of expensive design and ample resources. Joy also can be a form of authentic cultural and political power, even protest. When marginalized or minority groups participate in joyous activities in public they often feel and project acceptance. Human joy is contagious, when shared in public spaces it brings us together, melts barriers, and lifts us all up. Joy to you and me! https://lnkd.in/eUZUvr6d Happy holidays from Social Life Project and PlacemakingX

Learn from, support, and help shape the global #placemaking movement! Let us know if you are considering joining us for the 2nd #GlobalPlacemakingSummit. Website is now up with more information coming soon. Arguably the world's most pluralistic city, Toronto has long produced and supported the world's top leaders and conversations on cities and urbanism. The Placemaking movement has built from and been challenged and evolved thanks to many Toronto public space thought leaders: from #JaneJacobs, to contemporary friends, luminaires and collaborators like Gil Penalosa, Mary W. Rowe, Jennifer Keesmaat, Ken Greenberg, Jason Thorne, MCIP, RPP, Jay Pitter, Uta Mason, Jen Angel, Margaret Zeidler and many more from younger generations helping to organize this Summit. Come to Toronto to learn from, and support, one of the world's most sophisticated urbanist conversations and communities, hosted in iconic venues around the city. We're grateful to have pledges of partnership and support so far from HealthBridge Foundation of Canada, Northcrest Developments, Urban Economy Forum, Social Life Project and many others coming soon... See the Summit website for partnership and sponsorship opportunities. The summit will learn from, and celebrate 10 years of Placemaking Canada, while planning for and supporting their continued collective, learning, advocacy and impact. Other #PlacemakingX networks we hope to support, connect and learn from include Amaken Placemaking, Centre on African Public Spaces, Placemaking Brasil, PLACEMAKING Malaysia, Fundación Placemaking México, Placemaking Mongolia, Placemaking Europe, PlacemakingUS, Placemaking Emirates, Placemaking Switzerland, Placemaking Sweden, Placemaking Norway, Placemaking Western Balkans, Placemaking Bangladesh, Our city our space, Place Collective UK, Placemaking Barcelona, Placemaking Bulgaria and many more not yet on LinkedIn. #PublicSpace #UrbanPlanning #UrbanDevelopment

Likely relevant to waterfronts everywhere, we're working to gather inspiring examples to try to support the planning process for a place-led transformation of the industrial waterfront in our Brooklyn neighborhood: https://lnkd.in/eGs7fdjz By Steve Davies, Kathy Madden, Fred Kent and Ethan Kent #PlacemakingNYC #WaterfrontPlacemaking #CobbleHill