Tactical urbanism

Tactical urbanism is an umbrella term used to describe a collection of low-cost, temporary changes to the built environment, usually in cities, intended to improve local neighbourhoods and city gathering places. Tactical Urbanism is also commonly referred to as guerilla urbanism, pop-up urbanism, city repair, or D.I.Y. urbanism.

The Street Plans Collaborative defines Tactical Urbanism as an approach to urban change that features the following five characteristics:

The term was developed circa 2010 to describe a range of existing techniques. It is attributed to New York-based urban planner Mike Lydon. The tactical urbanist movement takes inspiration from urban experiments including Ciclovía, Paris-Plages, and the introduction of plazas and pedestrian malls in New York city during the tenure of Janette Sadik-Khan as Commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation.

Tactical Urbanism formally emerged as a movement following a meeting of the Next Generation of New Urbanist (CNU NextGen) group in November 2010 in New Orleans. A driving force of the movement is to put the onus back on individuals to take personal responsibility in creating sustainable buildings, streets, neighborhoods, and cities. Following the meeting, an open source project called Tactical Urbanism: Short TermAction | Long Term Change was developed by a group from NextGen to define Tactical Urbanism and to promote various interventions to improve urban design and promote positive change in neighbourhoods and communities.

In 1984, the English translation of The Practice of Everyday Life by Frenchman Michel de Certeau did not use the term Tactical Urbanism to describe events that occurred in 1968 in Paris. Certeau described tactical urbanism in opposition to "strategic urbanism" although the modern usage tends not to make this distinction.

The Project for Public Spaces uses the phrase "Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper," coined by urban designer Eric Reynolds, to describe the same basic approach expressed by Tactical Urbanism.

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