Innovative Planning Models for Activating Underused Public Spaces in FCT
Urban planning
Background
A unique forward-looking city committed to innovation, quality of life, and community development for all residents.
Challenge
Many public spaces across the municipality are not being used to their full potential and do not currently deliver the level of social, community, cultural, and environmental value they could provide to residents. These areas may include plazas, parks, sidewalks, open lots, neighborhood gathering points, and shared civic spaces that remain underactivated, poorly designed, disconnected from daily needs, or lacking accessible programming. As a result, valuable urban assets are often overlooked instead of serving as vibrant places that strengthen quality of life and community connection. This challenge seeks practical, innovative, and scalable ideas to improve the use of municipal public spaces for a wide range of users, including families, children, young adults, seniors, people with disabilities, local businesses, and diverse community groups. The goal is to better understand why these spaces are underused, identify barriers to access and engagement, and develop solutions that make them more inviting, inclusive, safe, flexible, and relevant to residents’ everyday lives. Potential solutions may address physical design, temporary activations, digital tools, community-led programming, mobility and accessibility, maintenance models, safety, or partnerships between the municipality and local stakeholders. The challenge is especially important for a forward-looking city like FCT, where innovation, livability, and community development are central priorities. By reimagining underutilized public spaces, the city can create stronger neighborhoods, encourage social interaction, support local identity, and ensure that public assets generate greater public benefit for all residents. בדגש על מודלים בתכנון
Required Expertise
Urban planning and public realm design, Placemaking and community engagement, Accessibility and universal design, Municipal operations and policy design, Data analytics and GIS spatial analysis, Mobility and streetscape planning, Public safety and environmental design, Program evaluation and impact measurement
Challenge Objectives
• Underused public spaces across FCT become regularly occupied, welcoming, and relevant parts of daily life, with clear increases in footfall, dwell time, repeat visits, and participation by families, youth, seniors, people with disabilities, and diverse community groups. • Municipal planning and operations adopt a repeatable decision-making model that helps teams prioritize spaces, match uses to neighborhood needs, and coordinate activation, maintenance, safety, and programming within existing city workflows and departmental responsibilities. • Residents experience safer, more accessible, and more inclusive public environments, reflected in fewer access barriers, stronger perceptions of comfort and belonging, improved universal usability, and broader participation from groups previously underserved by civic spaces. • Public spaces generate stronger social, cultural, and local economic value, with more community-led activity, greater support for local identity, increased opportunities for small businesses and civic partners, and stronger neighborhood interaction across age and background. • FCT gains a practical capability to test, evaluate, and scale place-based interventions consistently, using measurable outcomes to compare sites, reduce planning risk, improve resource allocation, and replicate successful models across multiple neighborhoods. • Success is demonstrated when activated spaces are sustainably integrated into routine municipal management, showing lower vacancy and underuse, better upkeep, stronger cross-sector collaboration, and lasting quality-of-life benefits for residents and the wider urban system.
Incentives
PAID PAILOT
