The Global Placemaking Summit in Toronto is a unique opportunity to learn from, support, and shape the global placemaking movement. The Summit will be hosted by leaders and an amazing local team of Toronto Placemaking leaders and organizations working in collaboration with Placemaking Canada and PlacemakingX.

This event will celebrate, support, and shape the evolution of placemaking learning, leadership, advocacy and action. We will work to support and connect the 30+ national and regional placemaking networks and build on the placemaking agenda development from the first Placemaking Summit that occurred in Mexico City in November 2023, thanks to Fundación Placemaking México.

‍Summit Goals:

• Convene the leaders of the global placemaking movement, including strong representation from most of our 30+ PlacemakingX national and regional networks.
• Set the course for the next 5 years of the global placemaking movement.
• Develop the key placemaking agendas and programs to advance the movement toward broader impact and deeper systemic change.
• Support Placemaking Canada to grow its community, capacity and impact.
• Highlight, connect, learn from, and grow Toronto’s public space leadership. Build broader collaboration, conviviality and leadership for placemaking in Toronto.

The 2nd Global Placemaking Summit will be building from and celebrating:

• 50 years since Project for Public Spaces was founded by Fred Kent to put the work of his mentors William H. Whyte and Jane Jacobs into practice.
• 25 years since the principles of placemaking PPS developed were published in the book How To Turn A Place Around.
• 20 Years of supporting Placemaking as an international movement.
• 15 Years of collaboration with UN-Habitat (United Nations Human Settlements Programme) to advance public space and placemaking globally.
• 10 years since Placemaking Canada was founded in Montreal through a broad convening and report organized with the McConnell Foundation(9 years since the first Placemaking Week was organized in Vancouver with Placemaking Canada).
• 5 years since PlacemakingX’s global launch at the World Urban Forum in Abu Dhabi.

Arguably the world's most pluralistic city, Toronto has long produced and supported the world's top leaders and conversations on cities and urbanism. The Placemaking movement has built from and been challenged and evolved thanks to many Toronto public space thought leaders: from Jane Jacobs, to contemporary friends, luminaires and collaborators like Gil Penalosa, Mary Rowe, Jennifer Keesmaat, Ken Greenberg, Jason Thorne, Jay Pitter, Uta Mason, Jen Angel, Margaret Zeidler and many more.

Come to Toronto to learn from, and support, one of the world's most sophisticated urbanist conversations and communities, hosted in iconic venues around the city.

We wish to acknowledge the land on which Toronto operates has been the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and the Mississaugas of the Credit. Today, this traditional meeting place is still the home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to gather on this land.

Canadian public spaces are extremely important as they bring together 450 ethnic and cultural origins, 200 places of birth, 100 religions and 450 languages (Statistics Canada).