While buildings may provide the beating corporate hearts of the world’s cities, it’s the public spaces that help bring together their inhabitants as a community. In this talk, Amanda Burden explains how public spaces make cities work better.
Animal behaviourist turned city planner, Burden cites examples around New York City — from tiny pocket parks to long waterfront promenades — to explain the unexpected challenges of planning open spaces that people love. Forget barren, soulless plazas and instead think friendly parks that look barely designed — but which actually drip in painstaking yet subtle aesthetic detail. It’s fascinating to hear just what efforts go into crafting public spaces. [YouTube]