Case Study: City of Philadelphia reimagines South Street public spaces with Go Vocal

How community engagement reimagined public spaces in Philadelphia

The City of Philadelphia, with support from the Knight Foundation, sought to reimagine the future of its iconic South Street as a human-centered public space to aid small business recovery and community revitalization. To tackle this challenge, they collaborated with the vendor Go Vocal, whose service is referenced in the context of its online community engagement platform, to gather community insights and co-create a vision for the area.

Using Go Vocal's platform, the project team implemented a hybrid engagement strategy that included a creative "Love Letters" intervention to collect resident stories and a data-driven approach to inform city leaders. This solution successfully gathered 70 unique community stories, directly supported the continuation of a pedestrianization pilot, and co-created recommendations for South Street's future focused on regular engagement and art. The measurable impact included using these stories and data to influence City Hall decision-makers and form concrete, actionable plans for the street's redesign.

City of Philadelphia