Type: Research Guide
Status: Complete, Ongoing Research
Improving the livability of our towns and cities commonly starts at the street, block, or building scale. While larger scale efforts do have their place, incremental, small-scale efforts often serve as a stage for more substantial long-term investments. This approach allows a host of local actors to test new concepts before making substantial political and financial commitments. Sometimes sanctioned, sometimes not, “tactical urbanism” projects are defined by the following five characteristics:
- A deliberate, phased approach to instigating change;
- The offering of local solutions for local planning challenges;
- Short-term commitment and realistic expectations;
- Low-risks, with a possibly a high reward; and
- The development of social capital between citizens and the building of organizational capacity between public, private, and non-profits sectors.
The Tactical Urbanism publication series is researched and published by Street Plans with the help of several contributors. The latest Tactical Urbanism guide documents two dozen case studies and provides background and insight on the converging trends behind this fast growing, action-oriented city-making movement. Together, the two guides have covered widely in the media and downloaded or viewed online more than 100,000 times. Recently, our publication has been translated in Spanish, Italian, Russian, and Japanese.
Always free, Volumes 1 – 5 are available online.