In an interview with Samantha Michaels, Project for Public Spaces president Fred Kent channels Holly Whyte and Jane Jacobs:
Placemaking…requires the community members to be at the center of planning. The outcome has to be theirs. Urban designers who respect community wisdom can be enormous assets is they are willing to leave behind their egos and help communities achieve their goals. Design is a small but significant part of Placemaking. Managing and programming the space is the most critical. Great places are about what people do in them, and how they feel, use, and 'own' those places…Take Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, which succeeds spectacularly as an iconic structure, but fails miserably as a public space. Contrast that to Balboa Park in San Diego, which gets 10 million visitors per year without any trendy buildings or fancy design gimmicks. It's just a great park that offers people the activities and amenities they actually want.
(Photo: "The Museum of Man" in Balboa Park by Flickr user DanReichert.)
The Dish 