Episode 17: Ethan Kent (PlacemakingX) — How Placemaking Creates Belonging

We already have scores that measure walkability, transit, safety, parks, and the number of shops nearby.

But a neighborhood can score well on all of those and still feel generic.

So what turns a place from somewhere that is simply livable into somewhere people actually love?

So it's a really good question.

So the livability indexes have really become dominant and I think are really affecting the shaping of cities.

They're causing cities to be sort of monocultural and sort of something we consume passively.

They were developed by actually The Economist magazine to measure how cities could sort of be... attractive to sort of corporations that could sort of move seamlessly between them.

So, you know, accordingly causing them to be much the same places that we consume passively.

And our theory is that focusing on belonging and lovability actually helps achieve livability more inclusively, more quickly, and more affordably.

Those are really the biggest challenges that cities are facing today, affordability and inclusion and attracting people to be part of them, attracting people to contribute to them as well.

So what makes them feel lovable is actually, it's much less expensive.

It's people, it's things to do.

And actually low-income parts of the world and more informal parts of all of our cities, markets and squares and main streets, is at the scale at which cities really attract people and help them feel belonging and then help them fall in love with it.

And when they love a place, they give love to a place.

And a place loves them and it creates this virtuous cycle of belonging and connection.

This is a question I have asked other guests on my podcast.

Imagine you had to design a 0 to 100 belonging index using only public data, things like shared spaces, walkability, parks, cafes, safety, and greenery.

What would you include and what would you refuse to reduce to a number?

So, yeah, so I – when I was actually your age, when I was applying to colleges, I went to – I chose my college because there was an economist that was measuring everything.

He was a famous environmental economist that – showed that you could, you know, measure all the sort of inputs and outputs, you know, quantify all the externalities of, you know, environmentalism.

And it's still fascinating to me, but I quickly realized that he was sort of, the economics and that kind of, you know, effort to measure everything was kind of taking the life out of what drew people to, to, you know, these, these fields in a sense.

Um, and, um, so I actually, I do like a lot of the things you mentioned.

I think the walk, like walk score is actually really valuable because it's actually measuring places to go destinations.

you know you know we measure like holly white i was talking about measuring the suitable space in a city um you know measuring you know women children elderly is really key that more just more um vulnerable members of communities uh if they're there it makes everyone else feel more welcome in a space holly white found that he thought that a space that needs at least 60 percent women to it to show that it's a comfortable space for everybody Greenery is key.

We want public spaces to be very green, but leading with green often limits its publicness.