From pop-up shops and tactical urbanism to permanent improvements to the public realm, opportunities for creative placemaking abound in communities small and large throughout Westchester and Fairfield counties. In this first of a multi-part series on placemaking hosted by ULI/WLI, Senior Fellow Ed McMahon will address how to best create welcoming, lively, walkable, sustainable, and vibrant places where people want to live, work, visit, and explore.

Gleaned from his own extensive research and travel as a professor and ULI Senior Fellow for Sustainability, Ed will highlight some of the best practices and tools to facilitate placemaking as an economic engine to unlock value and opportunity in our communities and effectuate change. Ed will discuss how smaller towns and villages that lack highway or rail access can use placemaking tools to promote economic development and support local businesses and tourism. In an inspired and thought-provoking presentation, Ed will address the mechanics of establishing a “place” and how density, height, parking, and open space requirements relate to each other to form the places we enjoy and in which we invest.