Featured Articles
How do you measure the value a park has on a neighborhood? From a gathering place, to increasing property values, to improved air quality, and more, we worked with Reimagining the Civic Commons and City Observatory to create tools to capture the social impacts of civic spaces like parks. The four key outcomes we looked at are civic engagement, mixing of incomes and backgrounds, environmental sustainability, and attracting neighborhood investment. Read more about the real impact of a place here
Read Article"The study released on Monday envisions Eastwick as a 'village in the city' that balances development and economic growth around a Main Street, while preserving open space for flood mitigation," writes PlanPhilly/WHYY. We are so glad to be on the team of consultants on this project. Check out this article about our work in Philly's Eastwick neighborhood!
Read ArticleWhat is economic development? Kevin Hively, Scott Page, and Aaron Renn discuss this and much more, including why cities need to look beyond just tech, the importance of growing your own companies, the three people ever community has to have, the future of the "three F's" (food, fashion, furniture), the need for the right space at the right price, the role of tourism and more.
Read ArticleReimagining the Civic Commons releases our toolkit for measuring the social impact of public spaces. These tools, which are now available for download here, enable anyone to better understand the performance of public space investments in their communities.
Read Article"And perhaps most impactfully, these makeovers are inspiring cities to rethink the role and potential of their public pool systems. When city leaders start to look at public pools not just as places to cool off, but as cool places, nearly anything is possible."
Read ArticleThree cheers to the fine folks at NYC Parks for making a splash with their #CoolPoolsNYC initiative at 5 public pools throughout the city! Cool Pools is designed to "increase attendance, improve quality of life, and bring neighbors together to interact with their local community pools --and each other -- in fun new ways" Take a trip to check out one of NYC's 5 cool pool locations this summer!
Read Article"The reason monitoring all of these potential outcomes is so interesting is that city infrastructure projects can have any number of consequences, intended or otherwise. They can accelerate real estate values, price out or alienate longtime residents, bring in new businesses, or flood the area with tourists. As cities and their donors have paved (unpaved?) the way for trail systems in Philly, a huge city park in Tulsa, or a floating performance space in New York, serious questions about these implications have followed. This project marks an attempt to put some numbers to those implications. "
Read ArticleOur baseline metrics reports for the Civic Commons initiative are out in the world! Following up on a first year of data analysis, we'll be going back out this summer and fall to see what impact the first roster of built projects (including Detroit's Ella Fitzgerald Park, HomeBase, and Memphis's Mississippi River Park) are having on their communities.
Read ArticleRichardson, a first ring suburb in the fast growing Dallas-Fort Worth metro area, has kicked off a Transit-Oriented Development and Innovation District Study to imagine its evolution as technology and the region changes.
Read ArticlePhiladelphia has been named by Amazon as one of 20 finalists for HQ2! Looking forward to the next steps of this process.
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