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In Praise of Zealous Nuts
New York-based Project for Public Spaces e-mailed a bulletin to its subscribers today singing praise for, among other places, Toronto’s suburbs.
The theme of this month’s e-mail is recognition of a new breed of civic activists, noting that the way communities improve themselves throughout North America has changed. PPS emphasizes the importance of they people they dub, “zealous nuts” to the planning process, asserting that concerned citizens are leading the way to positive, radical, local change.
In their newsletter, which is headlined by a photo of a (reversed) Queen streetcar, they write:
Look at Mississauga, Ontario, a city of 700,000 adjacent to Toronto, where a vital civic center is being created where previously a shopping mall had been the main attraction. The transformation of Mississauga’s City Hall and Central Library into a bustling “outdoor community center” was spearheaded … by advocates for community-based planning. In less than a year, 1000 city staff and local citizens have been trained in Placemaking.