For over 50 years, Jane Jacobs wrote about land speculators (they call themselves developers) and their puppets: most politicians, architects, landscape architects, urban planners, transportation engineers, journalists, artists, bloggers, and cops. Jacobs described in detail how the control by land speculators  has resulted in the destruction of Public Open Space; which in turn has destroyed every city’s ability to be economically sustainable and livable. At the same time, for the past 50 years, the world’s foremost city designer, Jan Gehl, has been labeling the above miss-design of cities all over North America as, “Dog Shit Pile Planning”. Toronto is an excellent example of  “Dog Shit Pile Planning”; because, City Hall allows land speculators, to plop down their “big box” hi-rise office towers, “big box” condos, “big box” expressways, as well as their “big box” suburbia shopping malls and bedroom enclaves  - in a Willy Nilly fashion!  Later on, ordinary citizens have to scramble about trying to figure out how to make over the land speculator’s “Dog Shit Piles” into a livable and sustainable city. The main battle zone is referred to as Hard Surfaced Public Open Space; which is all of the publicly own spaces between all the buildings in a city; namely, roads, sidewalks, lane ways, as well as squares, promenades, esplanades, piers and docks (if they exist at all!) In other words it’s the Streetscape! The design of the Streetscape is a SCIENCE!  Just like engineering any building is a science! A Deputy Prime Minster’s 200 page report on Public Open Space - the Streetscape - concludes that architects, landscape architects, urban planners, traffic engineers, politicians and others do not have the required skills sets - the Public Open Space Scientific background to design Public Open Space and all need to go back to school. This web site covers the SCIENCE of Public Open Space Design. Click here for a video introduction to the science.

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