The PSRG is excited to announce a research partnership with Street Lab, a nonprofit that works with NYC communities to activate and improve public space. 

Street Lab envisions a city filled with public spaces that inspire, where people have places to gather and connect. The organization runs 500+ pop-up public space activations per year in all five boroughs. PSRG director Setha Low and PSRG research associates Kristy McCarthy and Jesse McLaughlin are working with Street Lab co-founder and executive director Leslie Davol to assess the impacts of these pop-up events on the the neighborhoods and communities that participate in them.

PSRG is interested in better understanding the social and environmental psychological reverberations of Street Lab pop-up events in the wider community, as well as if the strength or visibility of these reverberations differ between communities that have more or less regularity of Street Lab pop-up events. We are hypothesizing that benefits such as inclusion, creativity, belonging, conviviality, social cohesion, and social justice will emerge based on the literature and that these reverberations of pop-up events might be different depending on the length of the community relationship with Street Lab.

Stay tuned for updates on this ongoing project!