Creating great public spaces in America’s downtowns — Carol Coletta is the President and CEO of the Memphis River Parks Partnership. She delivered these remarks on the vital importance of equity in public spaces to the International Downtown Association 2020 conference earlier this month. These past six months have been more challenging to downtowns than any I remember…

In October 2019, Carol Coletta, the President and Executive Director of the Memphis River Parks Partnership, delivered remarks on the civic commons to the U.S. Green Building Association South Florida GalaVerde 2019 in Miami. This post is edited from her remarks. “In the Land of Self-Defeat.” This grim headline is…

Tools for capturing the value of the commons — by Carol Coletta, The Kresge Foundation There is a debate raging today in America’s cities. How do we invest in neighborhoods without causing prices to skyrocket and displacing residents? Does new investment inevitably result in “gentrification” or displacement? Is gentrification even relevant in slow-growth cities? Who speaks for communities, especially…

For those of us working to create more civically-engaged communities, the country has never felt more divided. This is borne out by the daily news headlines, which tell of protest, growing inequality and partisan political fighting. …

By Carol Coletta Was it a parks conference? A health conference? A water conference? A sustainability conference? A conference on neighborhood revitalization? An economic development conference? Try all of the above. The Greater & Greener Conference sponsored by City Parks Alliance covered all of these topics and more at its…

The original version of this post first appeared on The Hill. By Carol Coletta America has become a politically divided and fractured country. That’s especially clear now, after the Presidential election, but the divisions were apparent long before. In 2015, the Pew Research Center found that Americans were growing ever…