Who We Are

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Fred Kent

Fred Kent is a leading authority on revitalizing city spaces and one of the foremost thinkers in livability, smart growth and the future of the city. As founder and president of Project for Public Spaces, he is known throughout the world as a dynamic speaker and prolific ideas man.

Traveling over 150,000 miles each year, Fred has undertaken consultancy work and given talks in 46 states across the U.S and 12 countries. Each year, he and his staff train 10,000 people in their placemaking techniques.

Audiences Fred has addressed include the Smart Growth Network, Federal Highway Administration, U.S. General Services Administration, American Society of Landscape Architects, American Public Transit Association, U.S Forest Service, the World Bank, New Jersey DOT, New York DOT, Ford Foundation, Caltrans, Connecticut Main Street Center, and the Princes Foundation. He has trained over 1,000 transportation professionals from statewide DOTs, in addition to many thousands of community and neighborhood groups across the country.

Fred attended Columbia University's Graduate and Undergraduate Schools, where he studied Geography, Economics, Transportation, Planning, and Anthropology. He studied with Margaret Mead and worked with William H. Whyte on the Street Life Project, assisting in observations and film analysis of corporate plazas, urban streets, parks and other open spaces in New York City.

The research resulted in the now classic 'The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces', published in 1980, which laid out conclusions based on decades of meticulous observation and documentation of human behavior in the urban environment.

In 1968, Fred founded the Academy for Black and Latin Education (ABLE), a street academy for high school dropouts. He was Program Director for the Mayor's Council on the Environment in New York City under Mayor John Lindsay. In 1970, and again in 1990, Fred was the coordinator and chairman of New York City's Earth Day.

He has taken over half a million photographs of public spaces and their users, which have appeared in exhibits, publications and articles.

Education

Columbia University, Bachelor of Arts in Economics
Columbia University, Graduate Program in Urban Geography

Selected Professional Presentations and Lectures

"Greening the City," Partners for Livable Places Symposium, San Diego, CA, March 2006

UCSD Helen Edison Lecture Series, San Diego, CA, March 2006

Park Slope Civic Council Annual Meeting, "Traffic and Transportation in Brownstone Brooklyn," panelist, Brooklyn, NY, March 2006
Read an article on this event at www.brooklyndowntownstar.com

"Broadway as a Destination: What if We Redefined Broadway Around its Great Destinations?" Panel Moderator, New York City, NY, February 2006

Lulu "Art in the City" Lecture Series, Richmond, British Colombia, February 2006
Read an article on this event from the Richmond Review

New Jersey Future, Redevelopment Forum, Trenton, NJ, February 2006

Great Parks Summit, Miami, FL, February 2006

"Building Our Communities: Solutions for Sustainability," Regina, Saskatchewan, October 2005

Downtown Development Conference: "Recapturing Your Downtown", Wausau, WI, October 2005

Mayor's Downtown Summit, Burlington, Ontario, October 2005

Greenways Forum, Detroit, MI, October 2005

Michigan APA Conference, Mackinac Island, MI, September 2005

Florida APA Conference, St. Petersburg, FL, September 2005

Field Paoli Forum "Successful Public Spaces with Fred Kent," San Francisco, CA, June 2005

Urban Design Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, May 2005

Livable Communities Lecture Series, Reno, NV, April 2005

JaxPride Ideas and Actions Forum, Jacksonville, FL, April 2005

Experts In Residence Program, Battle Creek, MI, April 2005

The Historic Districts Council Annual Preservation Conference, New York City, NY, March 2005

KaBOOM! University of Play! Conference, Atlanta, GA, March 2005

Miami Valley Planning and Zoning Conference, Dayton, OH, December 2004

National Edge City Conference, Schaumburg, IL, September 2004

NY State Bicycle and Pedestrian Conference, Albany, NY, September 2004

Connecticut Main Street, New Haven, CT, September 2004

Kansas City Design Center, Kansas City, MO, August 2004

AASHTO Conference, Minneapolis, MN, September 2003

NJ ASLA, Atlantic City, NJ, February 2003

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