Produced by youarethecity, an urban design practice run by Kaja Kühl in NYC, the guide is aimed at individuals and community groups wanting to remediate toxic soil on vacant lots in their neighborhood.
Read MoreA User’s Guide to (Demanding) the Impossible
A User's Guide to Demanding the Impossible argues that art is more than expression—it is a tool for transformation. Through creativity, collective action, and imagination, ordinary people can challenge existing systems, reshape public spaces, and turn bold ideas into meaningful social change by acting in the present.
Read More"Active Design: Guide for Community Groups"
Active Design: Guide for Community Groups shows how thoughtful design can create healthier, safer, and more connected neighborhoods by improving public spaces and empowering residents to advocate for community-driven change.
Read More"Living Alleys Toolkit"
The Market Octavia Living Alleys Toolkit demonstrates how underutilized alleys can be transformed into vibrant public spaces that prioritize people over traffic. Through community-led design, these shared streets become safer, greener, and more connected, supporting walking, cycling, gathering, and neighborhood identity.
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"A Mayor's Guide to Public Life"
The Mayor’s Guide to Public Life is an inspiration and how-to guide for city leaders throughout the globe. Based upon a series of interviews with mayors and designers, the guide proposes 5 strategies: Measure, Invite, Do, Evolve and Formalize. With these strategies in-hand, municipalities will have the inspiration and framework needed to build more accessible and inclusive public spaces.
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"Walk Boston: Pedestrian Infrastructure, Strategies for Improving Pedestrian Safety Through Low-Cost Traffic Calming"
In 2015 the WalkBoston published a report on low cost pedestrian improvements entitled Pedestrian Infrastructure: Strategies for Improving Pedestrian Safety Through Low-Cost Traffic Calming. The report focuses on traffic calming strategies that can be implemented quickly and at a low cost by an individual, organization or municipality.
Read More"A Consensus Handbook: Co-operative decision-making for activists, co-ops and communities"
A Consensus Handbook is a manual created by the UK Social Justice and Environmental Activism Worker Co-op, Seeds for Change, that provides tools and techniques for cooperative decision making processes.
Read More"THE CITIZEN'S GUIDE TO URBAN DESIGN"
The Citizen’s Guide to Urban Design is a four section resource guide, commissioned by the Foundation of Louisiana in 2012, intended to guide the general public on how to play an active role in the design of their neighborhoods, communities, and cities.
Read More"Two Seed Grenade Recipes or How to Hide an Illegal Dumping Site"
Authored in the 1970s by New York City's community garden group Green Guerillas as a guide to combatting urban decay, "seed green-aids" are cheap and easy to deploy, and yield unpredictable, but potentially beautiful, results.
Read More"How Can I Improve My Park?"
A guide to improving city owned parks, produced by The Center for Urban Pedagogy
Read MoreProject Guides
[bc] Project Guides are series of short publications that describe the what, how, and why of buildingcommunityWORKSHOP’s People Organizing Place planning tools
Read More"The PARK(ing) DAY Manual"
A short, practical guide to planning, designing and hosting a PARK(ing) DAY event, a yearly occurrence on the third Thursday of September, when people across the globe temporarily transform a metered parking space into a small public space or park.
Read More"DCDC: How to..."
A set of 8 guides to getting a community based project completed, designed by the Detroit Community Design Collaborative, a Michigan based non-profit architecture and urban design firm.
Read More"An Illustrated Guide to Grassroots Mapping with Balloons and Kites"
Public Lab's detailed set of instructions, including supply list, for creating aerial images of a geography.
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