With enthusiasm we recommend Jay Pitter as a placemaker. Over 750 of our citizens participated in the (RE) IMAGINING Cheapside work. This group included grassroots partners, city staff, business leaders, urban designers and our local community foundation. Ms. Pitter trained over 25 local residents to co-lead placemaking initiatives. She was sensitive, understanding and collaborative. The work was received incredibly well in Lexington. The media reported favorably on her work. Throughout the project, Ms. Pitter worked diligently to keep everyone positive and engaged. Her skillful placemaking approaches brought a very wide group of Lexingtonians together to deliver tangible, high profile, and sustainable outcomes.

While in Edmonton, Jay worked with staff from the City of Edmonton, City Region Studies Centre (University of Alberta), and the Edmonton Heritage Council. I cannot emphasize enough how valuable our consultation was with her. Jay shared many insightful placemaking principles and practices from her own work that have and will continue to improve engagement processes here. For example, she addressed: how to engage with hard-to-reach stakeholder groups, how to create space for uncomfortable or painful experiences without creating divisions between stakeholder groups, and how to demonstrate accountability to stakeholder groups. In addition to sharing insights, Jay is an active listener and is respectful of multiple perspectives. Her ability to identify urban issues while providing strategies and instilling hope in everyone is admirable.

I assigned Jay Pitter’s brilliant book Subdivided to my second year class of urban and environmental studies students at York. Jay generously agreed to come and speak to the class of one hundred last fall. She lit up the room with her presentation and inspired the students with her engaging and challenging conversation on city building in an age of hyper-diversity. A real treat! I hope she will come to my class again!

When Jay Pitter first took the stage to guide our symposium at MIT called Collective Wisdom, within seconds, the room came to standstill to listen.  Instantly, we all knew this was not going to be business as usual. This was going to be unlike any conference anyone had ever attended. The room woke up. Jay not only came prepared, she knew when to draw on her well-crafted script, and she knew precisely when to go off it. For two days, Jay welcomed, celebrated, challenged, and ultimately united all present. She asked us all to show up. Because of her, we did, and our symposium transcended into a gathering of profound intellectual, emotional, and political significance to our field.

Jay Pitter spoke at UN Women’s Safe Cities – Safe Public Spaces event in Edmonton in October 2018 and was subsequently invited to present to our staff team in New York City. In both instances, she was rigorous, thoughtful, eloquent and impressive. Drawing on her own personal experiences along with her professional expertise gives her an authority that enriches our policy discussions for better urban planning and design today and in the future.

Jay Pitter has developed a unique approach to engaging communities, often using streets themselves as the locus of the conversation, and incorporating new media and digital storytelling. In this way, she has been able to build thoughtful dialogues with groups often overlooked or excluded from traditional stakeholder engagement, weaving together a range of stories and analysis to build new ideas around familiar places.