When authors Melissa and Chris Bruntlett examined several groundbreaking urban transformations around the world, one thing stood out.  

"The cities often had one thing in common, and that was a woman in a position of leadership. We kind of looked at each other and said, there’s something worth exploring and investigating here."

In their new book, Women Changing Cities, the Canadian-born, Netherlands-based authors profile leaders from Paris to Bogotá, Manila to Montreal.

In an interview with Evergreen, Chris shares the inspiration behind the book, the common qualities they saw among the women they profiled, and the role of public spaces. Read the story →

What do public spaces mean to the people who use them? In Voices in Public Spaces, we ask community members to share how public spaces impact their lives.

In this episode, we spoke to Chris Kousinioris at the Toronto Reference Library. Chris says it’s important to find public spaces we can still enjoy in the winter. He sees the library as an indoor town square and a space of community and belonging. Watch the video →

MEASURING WELLBEING. I grew up in an apartment in midtown Toronto. We didn’t have a backyard. We had a small concrete courtyard with a few neighbourly cats—it was just about 150 square feet, not nearly expansive enough for the kinds of adventures and outdoor exploration my sister and I enjoyed. We lacked square footage, but our wellbeing never suffered. In our neighbourhood in the ‘80s, we had no shortage of abundant, welcoming public spaces and a thriving community.

My early experiences of play, exploration and community in my city sparked my passion for building public spaces and making them impactful. I do that with a focus on measurement and evaluation; words that sound painfully technical, but to me are about curiosity.

At Evergreen, we measure many things: who participates in our public programs, how volunteers engage, how extreme climate events can be mitigated through better public space design. Wellbeing is different.

You can’t tally belonging on a clipboard. But you can ask creative questions that reveal how people experience a public space and how that space improves their happiness or reduces anxiety. We already know that great public spaces advance health and wellbeing. We see it every day. But we wanted to go deeper, to test whether our assumptions held up when compared to people's actual experiences in the spaces we steward.

That curiosity led us to Davis Pier Consulting, and in collaboration, we developed Places4Wellbeing, a practical tool which demonstrates the meaningful connection between thoughtful public space design and wellbeing. Places4Wellbeing helps users with a survey framework quantifying impact so they can make informed decisions about place-based investments that will improve wellbeing.

During the development of this tool, I spent several days at Evergreen Brick Works, questionnaire in hand, waylaying strangers on route to the market or ravine, to ask for a few minutes of their time. The message I heard again and again was that when a public space resonates, it becomes part of who you are.

In cities, public spaces are one of the most powerful tools we have to support happiness, social connections and overall wellbeing. At Evergreen, we can measure it.  
 
The Places4Wellbeing tool was generously supported by TD Bank Group and Manulife.   

🖊️ ALISON HERR, PROGRAM DIRECTOR | EVERGREEN

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Evergreen is a national non-profit transforming public spaces in our cities to build a healthier future for people and our planet.