Purple Places Majesty



Project for Public Spaces:

A way forward for America beyond red and blue.

When we raise the idea of place these days, many people's first question is: Is it a red-state place or a blue-state place? The election results show us a country that is close to evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. Common ground hardly seems to exist anymore.

The issues and rhetoric of the presidential campaign left many people feeling afraid, angry, divided, or isolated. If America stays that way, we'll all be losers coming out of this election. It's easy to forget that progressives, right-wingers, and everyone in between share common ground every day--literally. They cross paths in parks, commercial streets, coffee shops, markets, libraries, houses of worship, trains and buses, community centers. Public places are the heart of our democracy -- not only where we vote in November, but where we meet neighbors and exchange ideas the rest of the year. ...

We've seen over and over again how a community-oriented process to create or improve public places--we call it "placemaking"--can bring people together in new ways. We've found this to be true in areas more deeply divided than the United States, through our work in Serbia, Croatia, and Montenegro.

Placemaking is a practical method to discover common ground in a community by encouraging a diversity of opinion toward the goal of building a better place for everyone. This same spirit can guide our national political conversation. What makes places great, makes nations great -- and makes the world more peaceful and prosperous. ...

To help raise placemaking as a new subject in our national conversation, we are launching the Great Cities Initiative, which gathers all of PPS's services into a united program of community-building. We are also planning a series of workshops, initiated by PPS Board member Ron Sher, to explore the promise of placemaking as a strategy for mending and strengthening American culture. The first workshop will take place this February in Seattle with additional ones planned for New York and Midwestern cities. These will lead up to a landmark placemaking conference or "chautauqua" in 2006, which we believe will spark a powerful placemaking movement the same way that Earth Day did for environmental concerns.

Please help us bring placemaking to the table as a significant social and political issue by joining PPS as a member and becoming a placemaking activist in your own community. America needs placemaking, and we need you to help placemaking succeed.

Shared Air is a precious, magical thing. And powerful too. Check 'em out: Project for Public Spaces