[Photo: Better Block Project]
“We had all these rules that stripped away beauty,” said [Jason] Roberts [who lives in Oak Cliff, a part of Dallas generally known for its crime]. It was Dallas, after all — charm was downright subversive.
He thought about going to the city government. “But in our community we had rendering fatigue. I got fired up to go to City Hall and see if I could take part in reshaping my community. But there are so many processes, so many meetings.”
Roberts decided that the most important issue was getting people to get the tangible sense of what a better neighborhood would be like. “Everybody knows what great places look like and feel like,” he said. “You don’t necessarily need a consultant.”
So in April, 2010 he got a group of people together to take a weekend and build the place they wanted. Some trees in planters on their way to a hotel made an unscheduled stop in Oak Cliff for the weekend. Residents outlined bike lanes and painted crosswalks. They borrowed chairs and tables and set up cafes. They brought in pots of flowers, hung art and set up a pop-up coffee shop and flower market. An unused garage became a children’s art studio.
The organizers printed up all the laws they were breaking and posted them in windows. And they invited the neighborhood — and the City Council — to the party.
Some things have changed since. The City Council reformed the zoning rules. The crosswalks remain, bike lanes are coming, and the street is becoming two-way, which will slow traffic. The art studio is now a thriving business called Oil and Cotton, and three or four other businesses have started. To mark the fourth anniversary, this April a new plaza popped up on the site, as a demonstration project to try to speed formal changes along.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/18/how-to-build-a-better-neighborhood/
Comments (0)