 Welcome to Coast the Coast. My name is Lily Weinberg. I'm here joined with my colleague Lily and Corral. We are thrilled to have you for our fourth episode. How's it going, Lilyanne? It started on mute, Lily. It's going well. How are you? How was the long weekend? It was good. It was a rainy day. It was actually three days of rainy days in Miami, but by all is all as well. That's how it goes. So, tell us, kick us off a bit and tell us a bit about Coast to Coast, what we're up to. Well, for hopefully folks that are have been watching us a couple a couple weeks now, Coast to Coast is a deep dive into cities and all of the major trends and issues that are bubbling up for city officials, urban planners, city dwellers around public spaces and life. So, we're excited to continually have these wonderful individuals really join us and talk about their work and tell us how they're trying to mitigate all of the crisis that's happening in the world. It's been really interesting and a lot of fun. So, today I'm really excited about our topic today and we'll be talking about how cities can better leverage streets for people. So, we'll examine how streets can be a part of the solution for economic and social recovery and we have two experts joining us. They come from different perspectives in different fields. One is thinking about the usage of streets for a downtown and its businesses and the other is working in neighborhoods, reimagining how streets can really be leveraged for community members. It shouldn't be a really interesting conversation. Is there anything interesting that you want to learn about, Lillian? I think, well, I'd just be curious to see what they are going to share with us about the use of public spaces. There's a lot of conversation out there, especially in this last week around how do we think about the equity questions, a lot of stuff that we've discussed. And then also, you know, I think what's interesting about both of these individuals is they're really creatively rethinking these spaces and there's a lot of like the creativity being around play and things like that. And last week, we had a lot of questions about the role of art in public spaces. So, I'm really interested in seeing how that kind of creative spirit really can help us make these spaces more livable. We'll dig into that. That sounds great. I think it should be a lot of fun. So, I am thrilled to welcome our guests. We have Shalina Oddbert and Rafael Clemente. Please join us. So, Shalina Oddbert is the co-founder and executive director of KDI Design. She is also in our inaugural Night Public Spaces Fellowship. How's it going, Shalina? Great, Lily. Nice to see you. Thanks for having me. Good to see you. And then we have Rafael Clemente, the executive director of West Palm Beach Downtown Development Authority. West Palm Beach is also a Night City and Rafael has been a great friend of Night's. Welcome, Rafael. Good afternoon and good morning to some of you. Hi, Lily. Good to see you. Good to see you. And this is truly a coast to coast episode. We have Shalina who's in LA and we have Rafael who's in West Palm Beach. So, we are covering the entire United States. So, let's dive right in. And I first want to tell you a bit about how this is going to work. So, we have 15 minutes between you guys and me. We will do rapid fire questions, okay? And then Lillian's going to pop up and be joining and filtering up questions from the audience. So, audience members, please use your Q and A button for questions. Or you can also be joining us on Facebook Live, hashtag Night Live. We will be monitoring the questions there too. So, thrilled to begin. So, Shalina, I would love to start with you. And I would like to have you set some framing for us. If you can tell us a bit from your perspective, what is the opportunity of leveraging streets for public spaces? Sure. Well, the opportunity is tremendous. And I think the way that I've been thinking about this over the last couple of months is less about reimagining the street because the street, actually, if we look back to its origin story, already holds a lot of answers for us. So, I like to think about it more of remembering the street and remembering about how streets originated and what their original purpose was. And so, I think we are all familiar with what streets did at the end of the 19th century. They were kind of the inverse of what they are today. Pedestrians dominated the roads and cars were the rarity. They were the intruders. People, you know, there are great stories and old New York Times articles that talk about people, the streets being covered with people and boys running up and down the streets, delivering telegrams and you could even get your nails manicured on the street. In fact, streets were kind of the entirety of streets were these scramble crossings where people would step off the sidewalk and into the street and over to chat with someone at a moment's notice. And so, I think, and in fact, there are plenty of places around the world where streets still function that way. And so, I think the opportunity is really just to remember that origin story and take lessons from it. And in a time, like the one that we're in now, look to that past as a as an inspiration and as a cue for what we can do in our present. That's great. And I love that remembering our streets. And I think that's also really applicable for you, Raphael. As you think about downtown West Palm Beach. What do you see as a from a practitioner standpoint, the opportunity for streets, especially in the economic recovery? I think Shalina friended perfectly about remembering what our streets were originally designed for and the purposes that they served, not just as places of commerce, but of social gathering and human interaction. You know, in the early days of the pandemic, there was a lot of social gathering and human interaction. You know, in West Palm Beach, we have been testing, probing, measuring and carefully designing our public spaces for a long time. I love to say that we have benefited tremendously from very good urban planning going back, you know, already really to the to the first plan with John Nolan for our city. And coming forward to current day or present time. We've had some of the best in the business. Help advise our city on how we can design our public spaces. And we've, we've, we've missed some opportunities for sure, but we've certainly capitalized on the best majority of them. And I don't think that we could do what we're doing right now in response to COVID-19 without the great work of so many people prior to today. So, but, but tell me a bit more about, about, you know, what, what you're doing. And I would love for us to flash up a picture of, of how you're leveraging the streets for businesses. So we all know that in many states, reopening has been allowed in Florida. Our governor has allowed businesses to reopen, but at a reduced capacity. So much of our downtown district are locally owned businesses, predominantly on our ground floor, our restaurant and retail. And for these businesses to even consider survival right now, they have to find a way to serve customers and still abide by the law that's in place right now. So we started working immediately with the, with the team in the office at the downtown development authority and with city leadership to come up with a program that would allow our merchants to be able to, to survive. And it literally is a, it's a life and death time for them all. So we went into action and started rolling out a program that became known as dining on the spot. And what it is is just adaptively reusing public space, some of its streets. Our main street, is a recently done curbless design. It's just a traditional street with a curb and two motor vehicle lanes and on street parking. And we worked with the businesses in that location, as well as with city leadership, public safety officials to get this design approved and in place probably within about a week. And nothing fancy, but again, it's just a traditional street with a curb and two motor vehicle lanes and on street parking. And we worked with the businesses in that location, so it's just a traditional street with a curb and two motor vehicle lanes and on street parking. And so it's just a traditional street with a curb and two motor vehicle lanes and on street parking. And so that's something fancy, but again in many places this would be considered undoable or even illegal. And so, and, and my understanding is you also used, you know, temporary use permits. We also linked in the chat box of an article for you to dig in deeper about, about how West Palm Beach did this. Leveraging not just, not just the streets, but the streets. So I think it's really interesting to be able to be that nimble and to be able to open up to be able to, you know, get more space outside for businesses. So Shalina, I want to pivot a little bit over to you because you're really thinking about this at a neighborhood level. And how do you see streets as playing a role in the economic recovery? Also something we've been thinking a lot about. So I guess at the neighborhood level and particularly in some of the most recent neighborhoods, low income communities of color in the city of Los Angeles and really across the country. We know that moving around the city is, is causing all kinds of new hardships, particularly for those that rely on public transit or communities that really rely on these deep social networks to make things work day to day. So I see an opportunity for the street really at the block level to kind of become the new city. In our office, we've been calling it the five minute city. So first you return the street primarily to people and it's not to exclude the car. In fact, there's this great story from when cars first began to intrude on streets. So there was a, there used to be a guy that would carry a flag down the street to let people know that the car was coming. So it's not to exclude the car permanently, but just to kind of put it back in a kind of secondary role on the street. And then once we've done that, I, then you ask the city to begin to travel to its residents. And I think that that isn't so hard for us to imagine. We already know how the ice cream truck comes to visit us at the block level. Some of us may be familiar with a mobile library truck that comes to our neighborhood or a fruit vendor. And so we just tried to think about this at kind of a scaled up level. And then we started to think about, you know, how could you be able, how could you reconfigure the street to be a place of service delivery? Can the natural history museum bring its mobile museum to your street rather than you needing to cross the city to engage in culture that way. We're looking at here. No problem. So this is, this is just a beginning. Study on what that could look like. And then you can create these little parklets of these kind of stations across the street where someone could, when regulations allow, give you a haircut on the side of the road or give, do that manicure that you've been dying to have done, or do something more cultural and, and entertaining by pulling up the Los Angeles library mobile van and inviting them into your community to maybe do a story hour. And the options are endless. We, we began to catalog all of the things that are already mobile within the city of LA. And we have a list pages long of cultural things, basic amenities, and all kinds of things in between that, that really just need a place to land. And of course the street at the block level can very easily accommodate that. And, and then of course there are street vendors who really have provided the kind of lifeblood of amenities across our cities, in some cities legally and in some cities just recently, that have recently gone through the fight like Los Angeles to make street bending legal. I think there's a huge untapped possibility there and we should be enlisting their help to, and contracting them to help us keep our cities running at this block level. Absolutely. And that's one of the things we've been thinking of. And where can, you said that you have a list of mobile services. They can, can folks go to your website for, for services in LA? No, not yet. Maybe that's a good place to put it. This is the internal study to think about how we can invite people onto these slow streets that we're helping the city to create. Got it. Okay. And we also, we are linking to a really interesting article that goes deeper into what KDI design is doing. And then we also just flashed up a picture of how you're thinking about also play. Can you just briefly tell us about how you think about play for, at a street level and at a neighborhood level? Sure. Well, going back to this original idea of looking to our past and what streets, how streets used to primarily function within a neighborhood. You don't even have to go back as far as to the turn of the century, the 19th century to know that streets were used as playgrounds. I think probably many of us either played in the streets ourselves or heard stories of our parents playing in the streets. And, and so we've been building on that idea in the city of Los Angeles through a play streets program. That's been ongoing for the past few years. And in the time of COVID, we simply began to ask ourselves, how can we adapt that play streets program? How can we adapt that play streets program to work in a time of social distancing? So what does touchless play look like? How do we create opportunities for playful learning? Because so many kids will have been out of school for the summer and away from learning opportunities. And so we're thinking about that, not just in Los Angeles, but also with the city of Philadelphia, which has a very long running play streets program and is really committed to continuing that throughout the summer in a way that also has new opportunities for learning and cultural exchange during this unusual summer. Absolutely. I think all the parents are wondering, how do we get this to work? Touchless play. We are dying to know. I know Lillian and I are certainly following this closely. So that's really interesting. Thanks for sharing. So Rafael, I want to pivot a little bit to you. We only have a couple of more minutes left before Lillian jump in. You know, the stakes are really high, right? For you and for our communities across the country. You know, this is a pandemic. And so I'm wondering, you know, what are you tracking and measuring during this phase of opening up? And how will you remain nimble ready to pivot during this process? Because it's a pretty dynamic process, I would imagine. It is. And, and, well, we're measuring right away, of course, business revenues. Are we able to make an impact with the effort and investment of public dollars and public space into the program? What we've done is create a grid system effectively in public space. And that could be on the street. It could be in a park or parking lot. Even our private property that's publicly accessible to allow these dining areas or retail spaces to spill out into. So we're using, we're using public space, public life principles, really, Lillian. And we're measuring not just how many people are using this space, but how are they using it? Are they lingering in the space? Are they assembling themselves distance wise in groups? A big concern very honestly right now is our people adhering to safe distancing guidelines. So we're paying close attention to that. And we're also looking to measure public perception. Do people feel safe coming back to patronize? And, and experience public life. Not just patronize business, but to experience public life in our, in our urban center. Because, you know, the people are the lifeblood of the place. So if they're having an hesitation of returning, we need to be able to adjust to those things. Right, right. Shalina, do you want to add anything I need in there? I would agree with everything that Rafael said. I guess I would just maybe add. Or emphasize a point that Rafael made, which is about who's using it. I would also extend that to say who knows about it. I think it's really important as we think about how we make these new systems available across our city, that we're doing it in a way that really make sure that the places that need it most, the places that we're already lacking infrastructure and lacking access prior to the pandemic are first in line. Yeah. Or at the front of the line to receive this new infrastructure, these new opportunities for economic invigoration and for cultural and social opportunities, as opposed to focusing them solely on the places where we know they're going to be successful because they're already that vibrancy and economic activity in the first place. So the fantastic point is really important. That really hits upon the equity lens, right? You know, how do we make this equitable and inclusive? So, so I'm going to pause here. We are, we are at 16 minutes of chatting. So, so I want to call in Lillian. There's a rapid fire tons of questions coming in Lillian. Take it over please. Yeah. Great conversation. Thank you very much. And I'm going to start with Shalina and Raphael. One first question to start off with is around leadership. And this actually is a question that also harkens back to one of our previous guests. Can you talk a little bit about what's the kind of leadership that needs to be in place at the city level? So maybe Shalina, you as it as sort of an outside of the city expert, tell us a little bit about what do you think is required in the leader? And then maybe Raphael, can you tell us a little bit about what's the kind of leadership that needs to be able to get this done so quickly. So any thoughts, Shalina? I think it's pretty simple. I think. From leaders, you need. Leaders that are ready to look outside of the traditional toolbox. Because that's what this pandemic is calling. Calling upon us to do across every system. So we have a lot of people that are willing to take calculated risks and willing to move things in ways that they haven't been moved before. So that we can take a chance, see what works. If it doesn't work, move pivot immediately and get to things that can be functional over the next two, three, six months as quickly as possible because that's what our city needs. We won't get everything right, right away. We don't move quickly to, and with the best information that we have to put things out into the public. We may miss the window to really have an impact at all. That's a great point. Raphael, any thoughts about sort of what it's taken for you to get this work moving? Well, as I mentioned earlier, when we started the session, that this has been an incremental building up of willingness and learning at the leadership level at the very top from our mayor and commission on down to my board of directors at the DDA, but also in our community. And we've done a lot of hard work to be sure that the leaders in our community, whether they're our elected officials or our influencers in our community residents and business owners, have the information and the understanding of what works and what doesn't work. And that we've been able to bring them into the process from the start. I think that engaging the leadership in that way and involving them, giving them the assurance that this is whatever we're doing, we're going to be doing in the best way possible. We're going to be monitoring and measuring and carefully approaching it. Giving them the confidence to make that decision has been the key for us to get it done. Great. There's another set of questions that's really come up around. How do we make sure that there's the right set of balance? There's a gentleman, Alan, on the line who really talked about, you know, cars bring customers to these areas. We need to be able to deliver and run business. So can you talk a little bit about how we strike the right balance? And then also maybe some specific criteria. A couple of folks asked, are there specific criteria that you're seeing used to develop which streets are slow? What does this really look like? I think folks are wondering, do we just stop all cars or all movement? What are some real examples of how this is really rolling out? Either of you. I'll just say a couple of quick things. And that's why I brought up the man with the flag back in 1908 because there were really good systems even back then to ensure that cars could access these same streets for all the things that the person who raised the question pointed out. And so it's just, it's not about eliminating the cars. It's just about thinking about our streets more as a network and thinking about how a network of streets serves both pedestrians and other modes of travel and vehicles so that you arrive at this balance that allows both types of service and opportunity to coexist. And I'm sure Rafael has some great examples. So I'll stop there for now. Yeah. Yes. Yes. And I'll give, I'll just give a concrete example from our most recent efforts in West Palm. Our main street, Clematis was just recently redone. And through the design process with Dover coal and local stakeholders and city officials. One thing that we realized through measuring was that the amount of space allocated to cars versus people was completely lopsided. It was backwards. The number of human beings out of their cars using the street was significantly more than the number of vehicles using the street, especially at peak hour times. But the amount of space of that, of that main street corridor, the fat, the majority of it was dedicated to motor vehicle movement at storage. Parking spaces and travel lanes. So what we did was rebalance the street was balanced the street in an appropriate way. The initial response was how are we going to park, how are we going to do deliveries, et cetera. But as we've seen the various phases, the blocks of the streetscape project come to reality. We're now having people asking for more. In fact, the latest, the latest phase of the project, the vast majority of the stakeholders in those blocks said, you know what, get rid of all the parking, just leave a pickup and drop off area and a delivery space. And let us have more, more room for human beings to spill out into the public realm. So as Charlene said, yes, it's a balance, but there is also this cognitive process of getting our heads around the fact that, that creating more space for people doesn't mean eliminating cars. It means rebalancing our public spaces. Actually in our urban centers. That's a great example about the pickup and drop off space because there were a couple of questions about what do we do with gig drivers? What do we do with deliveries or curb management? And it seems like you could just rethink the space. You can assign it and then create some of that balance you're talking about. There was a good question here around ADA and accessibility. Can you both talk about how you're thinking about accessibility in your work? Because yeah, I mean, I think we're assuming, I know I live in Los Angeles and one of the big issues we have is our sidewalks are destroyed by a lot of street trees. And so we've had a lot of issues with ADA compliance and being able to really navigate the street. Can you talk about how you're dealing with that issue? And how you ensure that it is truly accessible? Yeah, I would just say the thing that we are doing in our office is approaching it like we would any design process, even though it's temporary and even though it has to be quick. I think, I guess we would say that temporary and quick doesn't mean that it can, it just needs to be kind of the lowest common denominator. It still needs to work for everyone. It still needs to be inclusive for everyone. And so whether we're talking, if we're talking about something as simple as touchless play, that's touchless play that works for people of all abilities, of all ages and of all types. And so it's simply for me that the answer to that question is about process. The way that we bring all of these things online, whether they be a programmatic intervention or physical intervention, it really needs to start with inclusion and equity at the heart of it. And if it doesn't, if we try to push those things aside in the name of urgency or expediency, then we are missing the real question and the real challenge that is before us. It is to do these things for everyone in a way that is equitable. And that includes people of all types and abilities. Yeah. Yeah, I'll just add that, you know, yes, the process. As Shalina pointed out is, is, you know, that's the very beginning. That's where that you plant the seed and grow and grow your project. In terms of keeping things going. Urban place management and quality public realm. Outcomes are all about continuously monitoring and repairing and fixing and measuring and reevaluating your place. And access is, you know, at the very top of the list, access for all, you know, an equitable access program. Is a, is a critical element for everyone. So whether it's a permanent heartscape project. Like a streetscape or whether it's a, a responsive adaptive program like dining on the spot. We're always looking at, um, at access and through the permitting process, you know, obviously with our city, those things are always looked at and then we monitor to make sure that they stay in place. Great. Well, I'm going to turn it over to Lily to close it out. There's some great questions around how does zoning change after this? What do we think about smart infrastructure? Um, but maybe we can tackle those offline and that Lily, um, hop on and, and wrap us up. That was excellent. Thank you so much. Lillian. Um, thank you, Raphael, Shalina. That was fantastic. There are tons of questions. Um, so we are going to be flashing up, um, your Twitter handles. Um, so if you want to continue the conversation, um, please, please do continue. Um, I also saw a lot of questions around, um, uh, uh, touchless play, uh, Shalina. And if that's a real thing and it is a real thing. Um, so, so it's really, really exciting. Um, and on the streets of Philadelphia in just a few months. Ah, yes. Um, and we, we heard from Catherine last week about that. Um, so thank you both. Um, again, for, for joining us for this, for this quick episode on how we can leverage streets, um, within our communities. I really heard a lot about engagement and inclusivity, equity as being at the heart of it. So thank you so much for, for taking the time. Um, Lillian, can you tell us a bit about what we're going to be discussing next week? Yeah. So we're going to start to talk a little bit more about the role of technology. So the last question around smart infrastructure. Um, is a really good one and we're inviting Anthony Townsend, who is the author of smart cities, which was a book that came out in 2013 and it has a new book coming out called ghost road. And so as you know, Lily transportation mobility has been highly impacted by this, um, pandemic. And so one of the things that he's really going to be talking to us is there's both positives and negatives obviously to these autonomous vehicles and the autonomous future. And Anthony's going to help us dissect all that. And so we hope everybody can join us next week for that conversation. Same place, same time, Tuesdays, uh, 1pm Eastern. Um, and look forward to seeing everyone on coast to coast next week. See you next week. Take care.