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Making Main Street a Shared Space: Stowe Boyd at TEDxLongDock

895 views · Published 10 September 2013 · 6:29 · Indexed 30 September 2026

Channel: TEDx Talks · 2013 · Nonprofits & Activism

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Beacon, NY's, Main Street is one of its greatest assets, and it is being squandered by its use as a car-dominated thoroughfare, instead of an inviting, human-dominated open space that should be the core locale for social interaction in the city, says Stowe Boyd. Rather we should redesign it as a "shared space," where pedestrians, bicyclists, and cars are equally at home, but cars are no longer dominant, making it a much more accessible, safe, and walkable space.

For the past 15 years, Stowe's work has been social tools and their impact on media, business and society, and in recent years, a growing concentration on the future of work and the rise of the social business. He divides his time across research, writing and public speaking. His background informs his research strongly, a combination of hard and soft sciences, like biology, linguistics, anthropology, economics, computer science and psychology. He has presented at numerous conferences and events worldwide, including Web 2.0, GigaOM Net:Work, Reboot, Next, Shift, SxSW and TEDxMidAtlantic. Stowe is the lead researcher for GigaOM Research social area, and otherwise writes at stoweboyd.com. He was recently included as a contemporary futurist by Fast Company, and as the originator of the term "hashtag" by the American Dialect Society.

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