Playfulness in Cities

At our recent Strategy Summit, we had a lively exchange between Enrique Penalosa, former mayor of Bogota, and Tersesa Schwarz, who has done a brilliant job of reimagining Cleveland's vacant land as an asset for sustainability.

Teresa's plans show a Cleveland that is far less dense in most places, acknowledging the city's shrinking population. But her plan converts vacant land from a liability into an asset by using the green spaces for urban forestry, urban gardening, energy production and additional tree cover.  She also anticipates vacant land being assembled so that streams can be daylighted.

Enrique pushed back hard, asserting that the worst thing you can do is spread a city's population and turn the city center into farm land. (That's not what Teresa proposed, actually, but we take his point.)  His point is that cities must be fun, and what makes cities fun is the presence of people in public space that allow them to mix it up and enjoy life together.

Following the meeting, Teresa and I were exchanging email, and she wrote this: "We all wish Cleveland could be a dense and vibrant city, but we lack the people and resources to sustain this kind of vitality citywide on a permanent basis. So we’re using short-term interventions to inject playfulness and hope into transitional urban neighborhoods. We’ll never be Bogota, but we’re coming to terms with who we are and what we can be."

Not many uban leaders are focused on how to inject playfulness into transitional neighborhoods.  In fact, I don't know many urban leaders focused on injecting playfulness into their cities anywhere. 

I like this notion.  What makes a city playful?

  

Bridget, April 6, 2009

Lots of public art. If you have a friendly looking atmosphere, then people will linger, and feel more comfortable. Bike paths More walk by walk in businesses street vendors I mean, I suppose these are all duh answers, but they're true.

Link: http://www.bridgetcallahan.com

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