Following what Jane Jacobs stated in The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961):

 “Conventionally, neighborhood parks or parklike open spaces are considered boons conferred on the deprived populations of cities.  Let us turn this thought around, and consider city parks deprived places that need the boon of life and appreciation conferred upon them.  This is more nearly in accord with reality, for people do confer use on parks and make them successes – or else withhold use and doom parks to rejection and failure.”

We will meet neighbors representing different organizations, like Friends of Patterson Park and Audubon Center, talking about their contributions to Patterson Park. We will also focus on organizations like the Creative Alliance that gives the neighbors an opportunity to create and excel at art with their programs and activities. We will embrace the park as a place where art lives in many ways for all the neighbors and visitors to enjoy.

Join Cal Poly Urbanists, SLOCO YIMBY, and Strong Towns SLO on our second annual Jane Jacobs Walk. This year's theme is historic preservation.

As pedestrians, we can naturally feel when a walking environment feels unsafe or unpleasant, but what exactly are the elements that lead us to those feelings? How do we best navigate these routes? Join us for a walking group based on the three big Cs of this walk: Curiosity, Commiseration, and Complaining. We’ll start at the Back Cove Parking lot across Preble Street from Hannaford in Portland, and end at Lincoln Park along Congress Street and Franklin Arterial. This walk will not be a tour; rather, it will be a lightly guided conversation and shared act of noticing. Trigger warning: the walk leader is also strongly and transparently anti-car-culture.

We will be looping around a section of the Shockoe neighborhood in Richmond, VA. We will see the Main Street Station, the 17th Street Market, parts of the Union Hill neighborhood, Jefferson Park, parts of the Church Hill neighborhood and returning on Main Street. We will discuss the history of Richmond's East End including highways expansions, redlining, housing infill, walkable areas and transit.