Transforming Cities through Public Space

Project Summary:

Public spaces, including parks, waterfronts, squares, and buildings, can play an important role in addressing urban challenges by encouraging economic growth, social inclusion, and urban greening. Despite their importance, public spaces are poorly integrated or are often neglected in the process of planning and developing cities in the region. They are particularly critical in less-fortunate neighborhood, as access to public spaces is much more essential for poor people.  Funding for this program will assist the World Bank, development partners, and client countries and cities to identify and design policies and programs on public spaces as a transformative instrument for promoting inclusive green growth in South Asia’s cities.

List of Activities:

• Diagnostics on Public Spaces and Inclusive Green Growth across South Asia Region: Background Paper on Urban Public Spaces for Inclusive Green Growth; Internal workshop and community of practice
• Develop case study: case study; regional workshop
• Detailed city assessment: data collection, entry and cleaning; develop GIS mapping; city assessment on selected cities; south-south knowledge exchange program; global public space design competition
• Policy implications and specific investment proposals for selected cities: policy notes, global urban design forum

Outcomes:

Output 1:

• Background paper on Public Spaces and Inclusive Green Growth across South Asia Region

Output 2:

• Case study (Global experience on public spaces)
• A series of BBLs/Webinars/workshops

Output 3:

• Spatial assessment of selected cities on public space
• A series of knowledge exchange events such as South-South Knowledge Exchange; Global Public Space Design Competition

Output 4:

• Report on policy implications and future investment proposals

Outcomes:

The proposed project will assist the Bank, development partners, and client countries and cities to identify and design policies and programs on public spaces as a transformative instrument for promoting inclusive green growth in South Asia’s cities. It will offer solid evidence that good public spaces can deliver better economic, social and environmental value in developing countries. This will support ongoing WBG projects, as well as a potential expansion of these activities into the future operation to advance the Bank’s inclusive green growth, developing a new WBG business line. Dhaka waterfronts development, for example, can be operationalized, which has got buy-in from the client during the scoping mission in March 2015. Beyond the waterfront itself, it covers large scale urban development along the river including water infrastructure.

Collaboration with K-Partners and Others:

• Other external partners: Each activity of the project will be implemented in close collaboration with various partners such as UN-HABITAT, The Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) in the UK, Centre for Livable Cities (CLC) in Singapore, Non-profit organization Project for Public Spaces (PPS).
• K-Partners: The project will aim to harness these in its work, relying on Architecture and Urban Research Institute (AURI), Land and Housing corporation (LH), Korea Research Institute for Human Settlement (KRIHS), Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG), Seoul Institute (SI), and other relevant government authorities and academia. The Bank has been collaborating with KRIHS and LH in the urban sector in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, and has involved them in several subjects. The South Asia regional workshop, held in Kandy in April, 2014, discussed further cooperation with KRIHS in the area of urban regeneration focusing on public spaces. The team will seek specific areas of collaboration with AURI, KRIHS, SMG and SI for the proposed project activities.  The Bank team will also explore wider stakeholders who could contribute to this work.