Community, Advocacy and Labor

It's the second part of our conversation about community input and how officials respond to unforeseen outcomes.

The post Talking Headways Podcast: Do It for the Neighborhood Part II appeared first on Streetsblog USA.

Let's talk about community engagement that actually works.

The post Talking Headways Podcast: Do It for the Neighborhood — Part I appeared first on Streetsblog USA.

Cross-posted from Cyclelicious.

In Stockholm, Sweden, a fascinating political intervention has been taking place during the past few years. Starting originally around 2000-2001 in an anarcho-syndicalist youth organization, Planka.nu is a surprisingly innovative and effective transit activist group. Today it is still an entirely volunteer organization without paid staff, but they have a comfy office tucked on the western end of the Stockholm island of Sodermalm, just a hundred steps or so from the target of their activism, the Tunnelbana, or local subway system. 

We walk on layers of history. In our neighborhoods, in our cities, there were once natural phenomena, like creeks, sand dunes, hills, and forests. Over time they were covered in farms, factories, houses, and most of all, streets. At first those streets were dirt, often thick and muddy. Around the middle of the 19th century they started to be used for railroads, both intercity, and local streetcar and cable car lines. Sometimes the shape of our 21st century streetscape is a ghost of those old train lines.