Ideas for how people can create "Streets as Places" in their own community.

Public art without official permission? No monetization there, chump.

Come to think of it, as opposed to directing action toward propping up unresponsive regimes, street reclamation ideas like those presented here are precisely the type of project ideal for neighborhood organizations. Why not direct one's time and money at the problem, rather than the figurehead?

Perhaps the single most radical sentiment herein is this: "While people’s backyards are places for private gathering and recreation, the front area of a person’s house and the street beyond it can be an 'urban commons.'"

I know, I know. One-way, high-speed interstates work against such additions of human value. Maybe we should do something about that?

ACTIONS FOR STREETS AS PLACES: HOW ONE MAKES IT HAPPEN (Project for Public Spaces)

... While people’s backyards are places for private gathering and recreation, the front area of a person’s house and the street beyond it can be an “urban commons” – a place where neighbors bump into each other, children play together, and friendships are forged through impromptu conversations, block parties, and all kinds of other events. To make that happen, a neighborhood needs small places where people can gather (a stoop, a front yard, a corner, the sidewalk,) as well as opportunities to bring people together (Little Free Libraries, a community bulletin board, gardening, a public art event, or even a stoop sale). Across the country, people are starting to reclaim their streets and front yards as important social places.

We have roads, but we have no streets. Time for a change.

A street in Brooklyn (from the article).

A street in New Albany.

One by one, day after day, we post these statements of transformative principle, safe in the knowledge that the planet is filled with practical examples of their utility.

One by one, day after day, elected and appointed officials in the city of New Albany fail to grasp the central point, letting precious time slip past as they embarrass themselves through abject ignorance.

Granted, no one wants to get involved with the filth of politics, and yet the only real answer to this conundrum is to fire the incumbents. You'll have two opportunities to do so this year, and in the process, to select individuals who "get" it.

Reimagining Our Streets as Places: From Transit Routes to Community Roots (Project for Public Spaces)

In a city the street must be supreme. It is the first institution of the city. The street is a room by agreement, a community room, the walls of which belong to the donors, dedicated to the city for common use. Its ceiling is the sky. Today, streets are disinterested movements not at all belonging to the houses that front them. So you have no streets. You have roads, but you have no streets.
– Louis Kahn, The Street

Streets are our most fundamental shared public spaces, but they are also one of the most contested and overlooked. Today, and for most of the last century, we have taken for granted the idea that our streets are primarily zones for cars, parking, and the transporting of goods. This has not been the case, however, throughout most of history. Across many cultures and times – since the beginning of civilization, in fact – the street has held vast social, commercial, and political significance as a powerful symbol of the public realm.

The street was “the first institution of the city,” as architect Louis Kahn once wrote, and even if we don’t always recognize it, streets are still a powerful force in shaping our physical and mental landscapes. We name them after our idols and fallen heroes—in remembrance of presidents or literary figures, civil rights leaders or old Hollywood stars. In many of our own lives and experiences, they are sites for both celebration and rebellion: Stages for summer block parties and holiday parades, they are also the place we gather to express public dissent—as with recent demonstrations following the grand jury decisions in St. Louis and New York, where millions took to the street in protest of widespread police brutality and racial injustice. When streets function well on the level of everyday experience, they provide opportunities for people to connect in a way that no other public space can.

"Reimagine and redesign streets as places for people."

In a place like New Albany, one simply must continue making the same basic point over, and over, and over again, as here, in this (ongoing) history lesson: Case Study: Reclaim the Streets.

Reclaim the streets - your road belongs to you and your neighbours, by Finlay MacNab (Guardian)

Streets make up 80% of the accessible open space in our towns and cities; we need to take back these spaces for our communities

The streets belong to you. Yes, you. I’m talking to you – the parent, the child, the homeowner, the dog walker. They’re not just for that hotted up racer or family station wagon. They’re not meant to be dedicated to traffic jams and speeding traffic. They’re for you.

Streets make up 80% of the accessible open space in our towns and cities and offer huge potential as a community resource, as a place to meet our neighbours, a place to socialise and play. In other countries around the world, people feel comfortable using their streets in the same way we use the local park or playground.