In late March (20-28), Julian Agyeman, Tessy Britton, Gorka Espiau and Rony Jalkh joined us for The City as a Commons conference series in three Canadian cities. Throughout these two weeks of activities they participated in meetings on how to advance transformative city building and thinking.
Below are some takeaways from these gatherings:
- To strengthen the City as a Commons, we need to incorporate multicultural thinking in our day-to-day work. This can be achieved through dialogue and reciprocal understanding between residents. Developing inclusive cultural practices will help us advance toward more inclusive cities.
- Creating a truly participatory city means making sure that city neighbourhoods are made by everyone and for everyone. Neighbourhoods are places that can fuel social transformation; they can operate as platforms, laboratories, schools, models of sustainability and models of equality.
- An inclusive city is one where participation has been mainstreamed (embedded in local values and beliefs) and scaled up. An inclusive city is participatory by nature.
- Participation can be mainstreamed and scaled up if we make it attractive, accessible, and convenient – and with concrete benefits.
- There are two different systems that work together to create a participatory city:
i. participation opportunities that facilitate civic engagement in practical projects that align with residents’ daily lives
ii. support systems that make it easier to maintain or grow collections of projects.
- Placemaking is nourished by participation and trust; it encourages residents to find a place where they feel welcome. Like peacemaking, placemaking requires courage, compassion and collaboration.
- A shared narrative has the potential to transform communities, attitudes and behaviors.
- An understanding of a community’s social fabric and its waves of transformation is required to create a shared narrative (incorporating questions of who we are, who the neighbourhood is, what is possible and what is not). The deeper we understand the waves of transformation and the processes that happen within a community, the more the impact we can achieve through our initiatives.
- Stories for social transformation are not controlled by a central command. They are connected in terms of value systems and the impact we wish to achieve as a collective.
- Understanding the city as a commons involves going beyond quaint notions of the gift economy – it requires engaging in systemic restructuring. The commons are not only about asset building but also about the processes of creating and producing together.
- To strengthen the commons, we have to go beyond top-down and bottom-up approaches. Conversations should be framed around how citizens and institutions can work better to transform places, moving the centre of gravity out of the town hall and into neighbourhoods.
A list of practical ideas to support placemaking for social inclusion:
- Create places for children.
- Organise exhibitions and competitions where new residents can showcase their food.
- Support cultural and art fairs: music, fashion, dance, instruments.
- Conduct gatherings that foster a sense of caring among newcomers.
- Conduct activities for space appropriation (such as murals).
- Create community gardens using plants familiar and useful to newcomers.
- Use public spaces for book clubs and intercultural conversations.
- Create informal playgrounds where children can use their imagination in public spaces.
- Develop art therapy activities: public spaces can be used as a platform for residents to express their feelings through art. Contemplating these art expressions helps people to better understand each other.
Got any learnings to add to the mix? Please share them with us by commenting or on Twitter #civiccommons.
We want a country in which:
- public, private and social sectors are engaged in active efforts to close the gap between the socioeconomic wellbeing of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people
- the public sector, private investors and philanthropists separately and collaboratively deploy financial capital to create positive social and environmental impact
- social innovation is an integral part of Canada’s innovation ecosystem, enabling civic institutions to co-create policies, initiatives and programs that enable citizens to contribute a diversity of skills and perspectives to Canadian society
- public, private and civil society sectors act collaboratively and courageously to advance human thriving and address shared challenges
- humans’ social and economic footprint is in balance with the natural ecosystems that sustain life.