UP CLOSE: SHAWN McCANEY

By Joann Greco

As a commuter student at Temple University during the late 1980s, Shawn McCaney couldn’t help but notice its transient nature.

“There was this great throng of students who had nowhere to call their own,” he recalls. “They could meet in the cafeteria or a student center, whose name, Crossroads, said a lot. That was it.”

So intrigued was McCaney by this “institute of intimate strangers,” he even wrote a senior thesis unpacking the campus’ form and how it could enhance (or kill) feelings of connection to the university.

“I was always interested in community engagement,” he says, “though I certainly didn’t call it that then.”

Some 40 years later, McCaney is about to enter his second decade as executive director of the William Penn Foundation (WPF), where he has played an important role in developing its public space grantmaking strategy. During his tenure, WPF has directly invested or stimulated more than $1 billion in major programs devoted to public space. And more recently, McCaney has championed a new initiative, Grounds For Expression, which invites urban experts and thinkers to examine aspects of public space as a vital tool for advancing democracy.

“We’re committed to elevating the discussion around not only the physical and social benefits of public spaces,” he says. “We also want to recognize their place in encouraging citizen participation, especially as the nation celebrates America250 and democracy often feels under attack.”

It’s something McCaney has considered ever since his teenaged musings at Temple detoured him from his political science major and compelled him to follow in the footsteps of Thomas Jefferson, Frederick Law Olmsted and Eero Saarinen as a campus master planner. But an internship at the Delaware County Planning Commission, and an eventual job there, set him on a more general planning track. He soon embarked on a long stint as a senior planner for an engineering firm before returning to school for his master’s in education at the University of Pennsylvania, taking courses on higher education administration and planning. In 2003, when he heard of an opening at WPF for a program officer in environment and public spaces, he applied and was soon ensconced in the funding end of getting the work done. He’s been at the Foundation ever since.

Before ascending to executive director at WPF in 2017, McCaney was involved in early action planning efforts on the Delaware River, and the merger of the Philadelphia Department of Recreation and the Fairmount Park Commission. He was instrumental in helping develop a 2012 strategic planning process overhaul at the foundation that introduced the Great Public Spaces grantmaking program and subsequent initiatives like Reimagining the Civic Commons — a national effort that started with Philadelphia as its pilot — and the Civic Vision for the Central Delaware.

In 2016, with McCaney as interim director, WPF added $100 million to the newly created Rebuild Philadelphia, an ambitious program aimed at reinvigorating parks, recreation centers and libraries. It was the largest single grant the foundation had ever made.

“Can I brag about that?” he says. “Our investment was one of the top three largest investments in public space ever, after Gateway Park in Tulsa and Little Island in Manhattan.”

From nascent thoughts on how campus design can build community to real life visioning and funding of transformative city projects, “I’ve seen firsthand just how critical public spaces are to cities and communities,” McCaney explains. “Citizens define their daily lives by them. Intentionally designed, well-maintained, inclusive, and accessible parks and libraries and rec centers make for great cities.”

Kicking off the Grounds for Expression essay series with several lengthy posts of his own has allowed him to put virtual pen to paper in the service of ideas he’s been kicking around for decades.

In the first piece, McCaney lays out the case for the role of public amenities in “promoting renewal of our democratic values,” including the right to gather publicly to exercise “freedom of space.” Tracing the roots of this freedom to ancient Greece, he notes that“our modern democratic society is fundamentally dependent on the search for shared knowledge and truth through the vigorous exchange of ideas and diverse viewpoints in an open public debate.” In the second essay, he explores the decline of such public forums and the risks they face in contemporary society, including those related to access and privatization.

Future contributors include Laurie Allen, chief of the Digital Innovation Division at the Library of Congress and an expert on the intersection of technology and public engagement, and Charlotte Cohen, executive director of Philadelphia’s Association for Public Art. Concurrent with the essay series, WPF has announced a new partnership with the Knight Foundation that will award a total of $5 million to support capital projects that strengthen existing public spaces in Philadelphia and Camden so they can better ignite social connection and civic life. Knight and WPF will present ideas from selected grantees at the annual conference of the National Recreation and Park Association this fall in Philadelphia.

According to McCaney, the overall goal of these new initiatives “is to reconnect the dots between the constitutional right to free speech and public assembly and public space.” As an aside, he mentions that the Trust for Public Land’s “ParkScore” for the 100 largest American cities places Philadelphia at a not-so-hot 28th, thanks to a particularly abysmal investment score. (The City spends $112 per capita each year on parks and rec, compared to the $393 spent by number one Washington, D.C.).

The ranking rankles.

“Clearly, there’s still work to be done here when it involves investment and stewardship,” he says. “So, we’re issuing a call to action. By demonstrating how important public spaces are, we’re providing leadership for a whole host of other entities to invest in public space. We want to be number one on that list!”

JOANN GRECO is a Philadelphia-based journalist who frequently writes about the built environment.