Streets impact
health and wellbeing
public health and safety
quality of life
environmental sustainability
economic sustainability
social equity
multimodal access
The Global Designing Cities Initiative transforms streets for the people who use them, shaping cities that allow everyone to prosper.
Our team of designers, planners, and urban strategists seeks to inspire leaders, inform practitioners, and invite communities to imagine what is possible when we design streets that put people first.
The Global Street Design Guide supports practitioners in redefining the role of streets in cities around the world. Created with the input of experts from 72 cities in 42 countries, the Guide offers technical details to inform street design that prioritizes pedestrians, cyclists, and transit riders.
Designing Streets for Kids captures international best practices, strategies, programs, and policies that cities around the world have used to design spaces that enable children of all ages and abilities to utilize cities’ most abundant asset – streets.
This handbook outlines the steps from initial site selection to planning, implementing, and maintaining pop-up or interim street transformations with a focus on community-driven street designs that ensure the safety and comfort of all street users.
In the heart of Setapak, Kuala Lumpur, where speeding vehicles and pedestrian movement intertwine daily, SK Danau Kota 2 has become the focal point of a transformative initiative aimed to make school streets safer for students to walk and cycle. This project was backed by the Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS), a program that has committed to address rising concerns over road traffic deaths and support road safety interventions in cities worldwide.
Scaling up Streets for Kids: Highlights from the 2025 Streets for Kids Leadership Accelerator
In 2025, GDCI brought together a selected group of 10 city teams working to scale up their efforts to create more and better Streets for Kids in Brazil, Colombia, and Ecuador through multiple projects, programs, and policies. Here’s a look back and key learnings from a two-month online capacity-building program.
