Public Spaces

Partnerships for Public Spaces

The core of the Partnership for Public Spaces Program is encouraging and supporting communities to transform public spaces into vibrant centers of community life incorporating principles of sustainability and environmental protection. Through training, technical assistance and small grants community members and stakeholders identify an area of their community and create and implement a project to transform that space into an environmentally and people friendly center. The program strives to make transportation, parks, squares, pubic markets, waterfronts, and streets people centered, while introducing concepts of civic participation, urban renewal, brownfield regeneration and “smart growth”. In this way, the program not only helps community address environmental health issues and improve the quality of life of their community, but also build their capacity to make more changes for the better in the future. Currently, public spaces program are being implemented in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania with related activities taking place in Poland and Bulgaria.