Now is the time for tactical urbanism in New Albany.

Fighting Padgett with paint (brushes).

We've talked about it, and now that Greg Phipps' new best incumbent friend intends to delay street grid reform for up to 18 months out of naked political terror, it's time for tactical urbanism to begin.

Let's roll.

If you're interested, let me know. I'm not speaking here of my campaign. Rather, it's about what we can do to jump-start initiative, and to dispense with the perennial top-down thinking of the usual suspects, who cannot undertake any worthwhile reform without first tying the largesse to campaign finance.

Tactical Urbanists Are Improving Cities, One Rogue Fix at a Time, by Emily Matchar (Smithsonian)

And city governments are paying attention, turning homemade infrastructure changes into permanent solutions

One rainy January night in Raleigh, North Carolina, Matt Tomasulo went out to commit what some would call vandalism. Along with his girlfriend and a friend, the graduate student walked around downtown hanging homemade signs on lampposts and telephone poles. The signs featured arrows pointing the way to popular downtown destinations, along with average walking times. Tomasulo called the project “guerrilla wayfinding.” His decidedly un-criminal intent was to promote more walking among Raleigh citizens.

Frustrated by the syrup-slow pace and red tape of the traditional civic change process, citizens across the country are bypassing the bureaucratic machine entirely and undertaking quick, low-cost city improvements without government sanction. They’re creating pop-up parks in abandoned lots. They’re installing free library boxes on street corners. They’re creating homemade traffic-slowing devices using temporary obstacles like potted plants to make their streets safer.

New York-based urban planner Mike Lydon coined the term “tactical urbanism” several years ago to describe the phenomenon. Now, Lydon and fellow planner Anthony Garcia have come out with a new book, Tactical Urbanism: Short-term Action for Long-term Change, offering a history of the movement and a guide for aspiring practitioners.