Diana Ionescu wrote:

"What role should public spaces play as cities strive to recover more equitably? At a time when so many people and small businesses are suffering, what is the value of public space investments, and importantly, who stands to benefit from this value?" Hanna Love and Cailean Kok discuss the findings of research from Albuquerque, N.M., Buffalo, N.Y., and Flint, Mich., that found that public space investments play an important role in "shifting perceptions of places, in inspiring new infrastructure and private sector development, and in incubating underserved small businesses within the public spaces themselves." Each of the study cities "had wrestled with the well-known story of downtown 'decline' in the latter half of last century" and "invested in their public spaces as part of a larger effort to revitalize their downtown districts."