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Session Guide

FRI-C11: Greening While Growing: Retooling POPS to Improve Open Space Access & Equity

Friday, October 10, 2025
2:00 PM - 3:15 PM CT
Location: New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, Room R08-R09
1.25 PDH, LA CES/HSW, AIA/HSW, AICP, NY/HSW, FL

With increasingly constrained federal and local resources, cities need to better understand how private development can deliver quality public spaces. The City of Boston is leading a landmark effort to reimagine privately owned public spaces (POPS) as a policy and design tool to increase equity and access in the city’s open space network.

Learning Outcomes:

  • Explore a framework to allocate responsibilities between the private and public sector, when it comes to the development, management, and programming of publicly accessible open spaces.
  • Learn design and operations strategies to improve the community’s sense of belonging and inclusion in public space, especially when those spaces are publicly accessible but privately owned.
  • Understand the opportunities and limitations of leveraging private development to address citywide open space gaps in access and equity, or to enhance service level.
  • Understand how multi-disciplinary, multi-sectoral collaborations are crucial to improving open space network access and equity.