Spacing contributor Laura Boudreau is blogging the Creative Places + Spaces Regional Forum at the Artscape Wychwood Barns. Follow her posts on Tuesday and Wednesday to learn more about innovative city-building at the Barns and beyond.
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From Richard Florida‘s Who’s Your City?:
Jane Jacobs once told me that communities everywhere are filled with creative vigor, but that some of them are run by squelchers. Squelchers are control freaks who think they know what’s best for the city or region, even as their leadership (or lack thereof) causes a hemorrhage of bright, talented, and creative people. Squelchers, she said, are the kind of leaders that use the word “no†a lot. They constantly put roadblocks in the way of community energy and initiatives. I’ve seen firsthand how these squelchers drain the life and energy from their communities. They respond to new ideas with phrases like “That’s not how we do things hereâ€; “That will never flyâ€; or “Why don’t you move someplace you’ll be happy?â€
The first panel at the Creative Places + Spaces Regional Forum took on the topic of Community and Civic Engagement in relation to the creation of the Artscape Wychwood Barns — who makes a community, and how does a community make a big decision? Local resident and Artscape Board Member Roscoe Handford told of knocking on doors, bringing flyers to barber shops, organizing a community bake oven, and, of course, slugging it out (very nearly literally!) in public consultation meetings in order to make the Barns an inclusive, community-based reality. But as one conference participant suggested in the Q&A period of this panel, the squelchers are often the most visible people during the consultation period of any project, and other constituents may not have the time, ability, or know-how to make their voices heard in a policy-making shouting match.
The Artscape Wychwood Barns has proven that grass roots initiatives do work — you can win hearts and minds at the Laundromat — but the conversion process is slow, time-consuming, and at times divisive: “100% Park People†campaigned vigorously to raze the Barns and turn the site into a Carolinian forest, for example, and there are still committed Park-ers out there.
So, what’s the best way to convince nay-sayers, address squelchers, or hear from marginalized members of a particular community when making creative places and spaces? What kind of outreach makes its way from your mailbox, inbox, or barber shop and into your consciousness?
photo by Steven Hoang
