Last week, a full room at the Walper Hotel heard Nate Storring of Project for Public Spaces speak at KWAG’s CultureTalk series, which WRCF is proud to help underwrite. His big idea was that great public spaces are less like products we design and more like children we raise. He offered three pieces of “parenting advice” for public spaces: the relationship is the point, it’s the little things that count, and care is creative work.
Nate’s parenting metaphor sounded oddly familiar. It took me a minute, but then I remembered just last month, WRCF released our second Vital Ideas® report, Social Infrastructure and Black Communities, led by Teneile Warren. The report draws on a popular African proverb: it takes a village to raise a child.
Looking closely at one community reveals what a regional view can miss. Black communities here are not a monolith, from families with roots going back to the 1830s to newcomers from across Africa, the Caribbean and beyond. Yet Black youth shared a common experience: feeling watched in public spaces. They were more than three times as likely as their non-Black peers to report discrimination because of race or colour. As the report puts it, they need “a space to belong versus spaces where they are fighting to be themselves.” No two children are raised the same way, and what helps one thrive can leave another struggling. The same is true of the communities that use our public spaces.
But the report is just as much about what Black communities are building. Rather than wait, parents created what their kids needed through organizations like Rhythm and Blues Cambridge, Afropolitan Canada, and Building Brilliance.
Nate’s advice echoes many of the points made by Teneile and other contributors throughout the report. The relationship is the point: one leader described her organization as having no fixed address, connected to people rather than a location. The little things count: a garden plot, a swimming lesson, the experience of seeing a teacher who looks like you. And care is creative work: nearly every organization in the report began when someone made what didn’t yet exist. It’s also a reminder that we can’t care well for a community we haven’t taken the time to understand.
Project for Public Spaces defines placemaking as “a community-based process of visioning, experimentation, and care to change the way people use and experience a public space.” Listening to Nate, it struck me that with one small change, from “a public space” to “a community,” this is also a good description of what a community foundation should be.
Visioning means asking better questions before offering answers. That’s what Vital Signs® and Vital Ideas® are for: understanding how our community is doing, and for whom things are and aren’t working.
Experimentation means trying new approaches, learning and adjusting. We’re doing that everywhere, from our GatherWR tool to exploring new ways of connecting giving and investment to community needs.
Care means staying connected to organizations long after a grant is made, and trusting that the people closest to an issue often know best what they need.
Like a great public space, a strong community isn’t designed once and finished. It’s raised, together, over time.
Eric Avner
WRCF President & CEO
eric@wrcf.ca