Public Space Partners Survey
Overview
Across all five boroughs, thousands of public space partners make our neighborhoods safe, healthy and thriving. They take many forms: “friends of” groups maintaining a local park, business improvement districts (BIDs) overseeing neighborhood main streets, community garden groups, Open Streets volunteers, neighbors forming block associations. For too long, they have operated largely in isolation, without a shared picture of who they are, what they need, or what they could accomplish together.
With our Steering Committee collaborators, Urban Design Forum initiated the Public Space Partners Survey to count and survey every organization that manages and programs public spaces in New York City. Our goal is to better communicate the integral role they play in our city, and identify city policies, shared services, and funding opportunities that could better equip them to take care of their communities.
Our initial research has identified over 6,000 organizations working across the five boroughs, surfacing a field that is far larger and more diverse than ever before documented. In the next phase of our research, we are launching a survey, focus groups, and in-depth interviews to collect critical data about their capacities, as well as the bureaucratic pain points and operational challenges they face every day. We plan to use that knowledge to create a shared agenda for how New York City can better resource and support them, and build a better city for all of us in the process.
Stay Tuned for the Survey!
In June, we’ll release our survey and welcome all public space partners to make their voices heard.
Steering Committee
Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development (ANHD)
Biederman LLC
Center for an Urban Future
Citizens NYC
City Parks Foundation
Commons Steward Collective
Design Trust for Public Space
Gehl
MAS
NYS Department of Environmental Conservation
SharedCitySharedSpace
Urban Design Forum
U.S. Forest Service
Yale School of the Environment
Research Partners
NYU Urban Systems Lab
Yale School of the Environment Hixon Center for Urban Sustainability
NYS Department of Environmental Conservation
U.S. Forest Service
Supporting Partners
Brooklyn Greenway Initiative / NYC Greenways Initiative
Center for Justice Innovation
CUNY Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay
David Prize
Flood Net
GreenThumb Gardens
Natural Areas Conservancy
New Yorkers for Parks / Play Fair Coalition
New York Restoration Project
New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA)
New York City Department of Transportation (DOT)
New York City Department of Small Business Services (SBS)
NY/NJ Harbor Estuary Program
NYS SeaGrant
Partnerships for Parks
Sanitation Foundation
StreetLab
The Nature Conservancy / Forest for All NYC Coalition
Trust for Public Land
United Neighborhood Houses
Waterfront Alliance
Support & Acknowledgments
The Public Space Partners Survey is made possible with lead support from the Charles H. Revson Foundation and the NYC Green Fund of the City Parks Foundation, and additional support from several business improvement district partners: Downtown Alliance, East Midtown Partnership, Flatiron-Nomad Partnership, Garment District Alliance, Grand Central Partnership, Hudson Square BID, Hudson Yards Hells Kitchen Alliance, Meatpacking BID, and Times Square Alliance.