Public Space Contributions to Sustainable Development Goals - Local cases of success
November 6, 2024 | 17:00 - 18:30
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Summary
There are few public resources that provide the payoffs and benefits of public space for a just and sustainable city. Whether you are concerned about the climate mitigation, economy and jobs; ecosystem services; physical and environmental health; mental and social well-being; or justice, equity, and belonging, public space delivers positive outcomes based on empirical evidence. Public space promotes more Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) than other infrastructural interventions, including SDGs 3, 8, 11, 13, and 16. Public spaces have the added advantage of being shareable, replicable, and scalable from the local neighbourhood, city-wide for urban development, and globally to mediate climate change.
Many of the SDGs reference the importance of public spaces. Among the benefits identified are social interaction and inclusion, health and well-being, economic opportunity, cultural expression, resilience to disasters and climate change, public safety for women, and more liveable cities and settlements. These impacts are crucial in an age of rapid urbanization, growing climate stress, surging informal settlements, threats to the well-being of vulnerable populations including migrants, growing urban inequality, and increasing trends of sprawl and fragmentation, resulting in degradation or loss of public space.
A Social Justice and Public Space Framework is also necessary for public space to reach its potential. It can be used to assess whether a park, plaza, sidewalk, or street provides access, opportunity, respect, safety, mobility, and belonging. Without a values framework, public spaces can become places of inequality and exclusion. Community members, planners, and managers can draw upon justice principles to evaluate, imagine, or improve a public space. Each identifies a relevant and quantifiable indicator of equity and inclusion.
Case studies from UAE, Vietnam, India, United States, and Kenya demonstrate how the localization of public space actions make a profound difference in health indicators, climate adaptation, food systems, collaborative design, and women and children's safety. The presentations consider the outcomes of local interventions and suggest strategies for planning and managing public space with an eye to the SDGs and applying a social justice framework that demonstrates why public space matters to all.
As an added lens, after the panel, the event will include a workshop showcasing the pilot case study from Abu Dhabi in an engaging session addressing the visionary initiative to transform the city into a haven for families led by the Early Childhood Authority of Abu Dhabi. This workshop will focus on showcasing the spectrum of initiatives that spans this project, from shaping policies to proposing new and renewed urban design, and the piloting of public space interventions.
Objectives
1. Explain the role of public space in climate adaptation for individuals, communities, and the environment.
2. Discuss how public spaces work as people/place networks for building social capital, economic opportunity, and democratic practices.
3. Provide scientific evidence that social interaction in public spaces produces social cohesion, community engagement, women's safety, children’s livelihood as well as less tangible outcomes such as respect, dignity, and belonging.
4. Demonstrate how public space benefits are shareable and scalable from the local to the global such as from community gardens and farmers' markets to food justice.
5. Review the data on how public spaces promote health and well-being physically and mentally in multiple ways.
6. Present public space methods and case studies that achieve SDGs through the design, planning, and management of public spaces.
7. Consider why public spaces are overlooked in rapidly growing cities, yet their impact on sustainability and well-being is well documented.
8. Highlight how public space promotes resilience to urban change
9. Showcase process, successes, challenges, and lessons learned from the fist pilot/ temporary intervention in Abu Dhabi’s public space that focuses on children in an engaging session format.
10. Highlight behavioral change methodology through design and engagement.
11. Discuss key importance of data collection as a baseline and measuring impact in the public realm.