Tactical urban planning | From concept to implementation

What is tactical urban planning?

The movement was born out of a spontaneous, ephemeral urban intervention by the Rebar artists’ collective, who rented a parking space to set up a terrace café in San Francisco for a day. This was followed by community gardens, placattoirs (parklets), street art performances, ephemeral installations, microarchitecture and more. The aim of such interventions is to re-appropriate public space in a playful and festive way, while creating a discussion about its development potential. This concept was subsequently theorized and popularized by young author and blogger Mike Lydon with his Tactical Urbanism – Short Term Action, Long Term Change, in 2010.

Tactical urban planning thus aims to experiment with urban planning in its purest form; the city becomes an urban laboratory, a space for experimentation and innovation where citizens and professionals alike have the opportunity to take part in the evolution of their environment. Based on three basic principles – micro-scale, low-cost and short-term – this approach seeks to simplify the urban project. In so doing, the barrier to entry imposed by the planning of permanent works is eliminated, opening the door to avant-garde initiatives.

In concrete terms, this involves the temporary development of a public space, often a street and its surroundings – which form a set of monofunctional spaces for automobile transit – in order to transform them into lively, attractive and diversified public spaces. This approach is also part of a medium- to long-term perspective, starting with a reflection on the evolution of an obsolete or underused space, and enabling the revitalization of certain environments to be tested.

Moving away from conventional practices, tactical urbanism (TU) enables spontaneous changes to be made to the urban environment quickly and at low cost, so that public space evolves at the same pace as the city.

Features specific to UT    

Often the initiative of citizens’ groups, tactical projects can also be initiated by cities. The most famous example is certainly the pedestrianization of Times Square, where the City of New York limited automobile traffic, to give the street back to the 350,000 pedestrians who were crowding the thin sidewalks every day.

Wisely advised by the firm of internationally renowned Danish urban architect Jan Gehl, the New York Department of Transportation began its temporary intervention on the site with floor paint and inexpensive outdoor furniture. Such was its success that an impressive volume of citizen requests were made for further redevelopment of the area.

By adopting a series of temporary and cost-effective measures, the City was able to easily test citizens’ demands, eventually retaining the most effective ones permanently. Even today, Times Square is constantly evolving.

Five specific features:

• a deliberate, phased approach;
• global solutions to local problems;
• short-term commitment and realistic expectations;
• low risk and high probability of success;
• development of links and coordination between decision-makers, citizens and planners.

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Image: Ville de Montréal