Last week I explored where community could lead the way to cultivating belonging. This week we have a thought exercise.
Imagine a world where belonging is community-driven in 2032:
How do we know that belonging is community-driven? What are the signs in the environment, new behaviors and norms, technological shifts, economic underpinnnings, and, political actions?
What has to be true and/or untrue as compared to today? What would speed these changes into greater scale or impact? What would slow them down?
What weird and/or excited discoveries, disruptions or interventions prompted belonging to become community-driven?
What disruption, innovation, experience or story that triggers your worst fears about community-driven belonging?
What disruption, innovation, experience or story that gives you hope for the future of community-driven belonging?
What a wonderful exercise! For the first question, I think a clear indication that belonging is community-driven would be the presence of robust participatory budgeting processes for each community. My reasoning is my answer for number five: a few years ago I was able to participate in a participatory budgeting process in a neighbourhood in my city. It was really humbling to witness people from the community work together to address accessibility and inclusion issues in the process, collectively shape proposals, and eventually vote on what amenities and services they wanted to see take root in the neighbourhood. I would really love to see PB processes become common practice in cities - particularly as a methodology for designing and creative public social spaces.
For #1, I think the key theme needs to be "Access." That can be literal access, like public transportation, or online through things like high-speed internet. Figure out access (writ large), and almost every hurdle gets cleared. Just my .02.
For #4, my biggest concern is a concentration of power by a handful of people who then deem themselves gatekeepers/tastemakers. Most of us lived through that in Jr. high/HS. I'm not interested in seeing that continue/increase on a societal level.
What a wonderful exercise! For the first question, I think a clear indication that belonging is community-driven would be the presence of robust participatory budgeting processes for each community. My reasoning is my answer for number five: a few years ago I was able to participate in a participatory budgeting process in a neighbourhood in my city. It was really humbling to witness people from the community work together to address accessibility and inclusion issues in the process, collectively shape proposals, and eventually vote on what amenities and services they wanted to see take root in the neighbourhood. I would really love to see PB processes become common practice in cities - particularly as a methodology for designing and creative public social spaces.
For #1, I think the key theme needs to be "Access." That can be literal access, like public transportation, or online through things like high-speed internet. Figure out access (writ large), and almost every hurdle gets cleared. Just my .02.
For #4, my biggest concern is a concentration of power by a handful of people who then deem themselves gatekeepers/tastemakers. Most of us lived through that in Jr. high/HS. I'm not interested in seeing that continue/increase on a societal level.