Places That Heal
Why some places make people better — and how to build one.
Free. One hour. Bring a place you care about.
The places people come back to have three things in common.
Most development produces places people pass through. A few produce places people return to — slower, calmer, better than when they arrived. In this hour Tony walks through what those places share, with real projects at real scales.
Nature
What a place is already doing before anyone builds on it — and what changes when a project works with that instead of over it.
Community
Who a place is for, who gets to shape it, and why the answer to that question shows up in how it feels years later.
Culture
What was there before, what people remember, and how the places that last keep telling that story.
Tony Cho
Founder of Future of Cities and author of Generation Regeneration, Tony has spent two decades building places that heal — from Miami’s Wynwood Arts District to the ChoZen Center for Regenerative Living, cited by Dan Buettner as a model for a Blue Zone.
This session is the most direct version of what he’s learned doing it: what the places that worked had in common, and what the ones that didn’t were missing.
Is it really free?
Yes. The hour stands on its own. At the end Tony will share ways to go deeper with Future of Cities, but nothing is required.
What if I can’t make it live?
Register anyway. Everyone who registers gets the replay for 48 hours after the session.
Do I need a project?
No. It helps to have a place in mind — a lot, a building, a block, a neighborhood — but a place you simply care about works just as well.
Where does it happen?
On Zoom. Your join link arrives by email the day before, and again the morning of.