To create a world-class civic center in Tacoma, Washington, PPS’s Cynthia Nikitin shares the four key steps that will make Pacific Plaza a vibrant public space.

Phil Myrick and David O’Neil traveled to Anchorage to visit the city’s markets and meet with businesses to better connect the markets to the city’s main retail area.

Image (c) Anchorage Daily News

Recent Chinese federal government policies touting cyclist- and pedestrian-friendly transportation contrast with the less hospitable stance taken by some major cities, who have taken to fining jaywalkers and bicyclers who violate traffic laws.

Toni Gold, a Senior Associate of PPS, writes this piece in the Hartford Courant on the 50th anniversary of the interstate highway system, and takes a look at what the future of transportation holds.

“Some big American cities are flourishing as at no time in recent memory. Places like New York and San Francisco appear to be richer and more dazzling than ever: crime remains low, new arrivals pour in, neighborhoods have risen from the dead.

But middle-class city dwellers across the country are being squeezed.

This time, they are being squeezed out by the rich as much, or more so, as by the poor — a casualty of high housing costs and the thinning out of the country’s once broad economic middle. The percentage of middle-income neighborhoods in metropolitan areas like Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington has dropped since 1970, according to a recent Brookings Institution report.”

Sunday’s NY Times article cited PPS’s opposition to the existing plans for Brooklyn Bridge Park.  Our critique can be found here: http://www.pps.org/great_public_spaces/one?public_place_id=933

An essay by PPS president  Fred Kent on the current Downtown Brooklyn Development efforts including the Waterfront: http://www.pps.org/info/ppsnews/brooklyn_essay

Another recent article about this issue heavily quoting Fred Kent:  http://www2.pps.org/updates/one-entry?entry_id=6531

Chicago area communities restore brick streets for aesthetics and traffic-calming.

A planner who quoted Jane Jacobs for years finally discovers what the author really said in her classic book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities

Flint is a city that was built around cars, yet remarkably, for a city that was planned for everything but people, there are still some great people working to create a genuine “Steets Rennaissance,” writes PPS Vice President Ethan Kent in his correspondence to the Streets Blog.

Depending on who you ask, the new Tanner Springs Park in Portland, OR, is a boon for the neighborhood, or a bust. According to Fred Kent, President of Project for Public Spaces, the park’s entire concept represents landscape designers putting their egos ahead of public need.