Heres a post from PPS that directly incorporates much the essence of inclusiveness and small scale changes on taking back public space
Great places like Vancouver’s Granville Island come from focusing on people and place, not design. / Photo: PPS
Last week, Fast Company posted a list, adapted from the book Smart Customers, Stupid Companies, of 7 Ways to Disrupt Your Industry. Reading through the list, we were struck by how applicable the recommendations that the authors put forth are to our own principles for good Placemaking. But it makes sense, when you think about it: by directly involving communities in shaping their public spaces–leading with people, not design–Placemaking is in fact a highly disruptive approach.
Placemaking tosses out the idea that an architect or planner is more of an expert about how a place should be used than the people who are going to use it. By bringing people together around a shared physical place, it’s also a powerful tool for disrupting local complacency. Great public spaces give people a tangible way to connect with their neighborhoods, building a stronger local constituency–akasense of community–over the long term.
