Talking and looking at boxes

Woman with smile

As the workshop participants departed, two women spoke to Anna Slafer, the CUBE workshop coordinator, with these words: “I have to tell you that we came to this workshop today determined to move away from Flint, Michigan. We are leaving this workshop energized, excited, and wanting to participate in the development of a new Flint.”

The opening activities included among other things:

Purpose: to show that we are all affected by our environments and we are all designers

Childhood Space Exercise:Remember a childhood space that made a big impression on you Walk around in this environment (the classroom) and see how it makes you feel .

Anna reminded the group that every city changes, and that this was true for the Box City they were building. That the changes usually made a situation for change: a dilapidated highway, abandoned buildings, empty lots. They were advised that thy should get advice from their neighboring groups and that by listening to the feelings of others, they might want to change their minds about what they were planning. This happened within this group in both major and minor situations. The group with the major differences ended up laughing and chatting by the end of the workshop.

Workshop assistants (trained on the afternoon before) circulated among the groups asking questions like, “Why would you do this?” “Is this where this really belongs?” “Would you really want to live here?” Both groups, the planners and the participants, were surprised at how frank the workshop assistants were with their questions. The questions made the participants really think abut what they were doing.

Anna ended by showing simple examples of successful real things that neighborhoods had already done: The Wheatley neighborhood Transportation project; the Porch Project, a swing on the front porch available to all. Many projects are discussed in CUBE’s Community Connections. For review were other books on simple goals for neighborhood participation.

Contact: Anna Slafer, CUBE Cadre, aslafer@gmail.com