Benefits of Public Spaces
Urban plazas promote walkability, increase resident happiness, and garner foot traffic for nearby businesses. The Downtown Plaza will provide a sense of place and cultivate community pride. As designed, the plaza dedicates space to play, exercise, and relax near greenery. Natural landscaping and trees in this plaza will help reduce surface temperatures, providing visitor respite from the beating sun. The plaza invites passersby to sit and stay, enhancing the public realm and increasing safety through the number of eyes on the street. It provides space for residents from different neighborhoods to socialize and interact, enhancing our city's social cohesion and sense of belonging. As an attractive infrastructure amenity, it can increase nearby property values which benefits the city through greater tax revenues.
Plazas and parks in downtown areas have been shown to positively influence public health, the local economy, and the natural environment. Below are some popular media sources for further reading.
- Article: City Life is Too Lonely. Urban Planning Can Help. (Bloomberg, 12/14/23)
- Article: Teen Girls Need Better Public Spaces to Hang Out (Bloomberg, 5/28/21)
- Article: Examining the holistic impacts of public space investments in three cities (Brookings, 7/27/21)
- Article: Ten social benefits of walkable places (Congress for the New Urbanism, 8/12/21)
- Video: Did pedestrian malls ruin U.S. downtowns? (City Beautiful, 10/24/19)
- Video: How public spaces make cities work (Amanda Burden Ted Talk, 4/7/14)
The above image is a design framework from the Project for Public Spaces.
