Elena Madison (PPS) and Ethan Kent (PlacemakingX) were the guest presenters at September’s meeting of the CID Forum on 1 September.

Elena Madison, Director of Programs and Projects at Project for Public Spaces presented on Bringing Public Spaces Back to Life; Managing for Health and Social Engagement.

At the end of the presentation, Elena spoke of Woodruff Park in Atlanta, where a dedicated case manager is committed to meeting the holistic needs of those experiencing homelessness in public spaces. Find more information HERE.

Ethan Kent, Executive Director at PlacemakingX

Ethan Kent works to support placemaking organizations, projects, and leadership around the world, to grow the global placemaking movement and build systemic change towards place-led urbanization. In 2019 he co-founded PlacemakingX to network and accelerate placemaking for global impact. Ethan has more than two decades of experience working on public spaces and placemaking campaigns with Project for Public Spaces, traveling to more than 1000 cities and towns, and 60 countries. Ethan has been integral to the development of placemaking as a transformative approach to economic development, environmentalism, transportation planning, governance, resilience, social equity, design, digital space, and innovation.

PLACEMAKING PROJECTS 

Major projects that Ethan has led have included: Times Square and Astor Place in New York; Parramatta Square, Sydney, NSW; Congress Square in Portland, ME; Kennedy Plaza in Providence, RI; Pompey Square, Nassau, Bahamas; Garden Place in Hamilton, New Zealand; and Sub Centro Las Condes in Santiago, Chile. He has also worked with some of the most high profile developments in the world to help maximize public space outcomes in Hong Kong, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Auckland, and Sao Paulo.

EDUCATION Ethan studied sociology, environmental studies, and economics as an undergraduate at Bowdoin College. He explored local development issues in the context of globalization during a year of travel around the world as a participant in the International Honors Program. Ethan did his graduate work at Antioch University Seattle’s Center for Creative Change, in Environment and Community. He is a Senior Fellow with the Institute for Place Management. He attributes his placemaking education, and any miseducation, to the communities he has worked with, and to his father who founded Project for Public Spaces and the placemaking movement.