Economy
Designing the Future of Play
Over the next several months, 50 innovative recreation spaces will spring up in cities across the U.S.
On their way to Pecan Park Elementary School, the kids of west Jackson, Mississippi, avoided the sidewalks.
“They were overgrown and cracked; it was scary to walk on them,” says Nia Umoja, the lead organizer of the Cooperative Community of New West Jackson, a local, resident-driven collective using creative placemaking to revitalize the area. Umoja, who helped to establish the CCNWJ three years ago, remembers seeing elementary school kids filing through the neighborhood down the middle of the streets, or trying to catch a ride in a car. No buses service the local school.