The Power of the Commons
Civic purpose, participation and pride
Fostering civic engagement through public space
This article is the first in a series highlighting the impacts featured in The Power of the Commons, our report on the inspirational outcomes of the initiative’s first six years.
A civically engaged city is a place where people of all backgrounds participate in public life and help shape their community’s future. It is associated with a robust sense of belonging and higher levels of stewardship, advocacy and trust. In a time when trust in our civic institutions is faltering and divisions continue to deepen, fostering civic engagement may be more important than ever.
Akron and Detroit provide promising examples of how to invest in public space in ways that spur civic engagement. Both cities focused on neighborhoods where the scars of history run deep, created by racist public policies like redlining and decades of disinvestment, industrial decline and population loss. In these communities, promises made and not delivered by past civic leaders led to an understandable distrust of local governments and institutions.
When community leaders in both cities began reimagining their civic commons in 2016, they were ready to do things differently. With support from the Reimagining the Civic Commons initiative and inspiration from other cities, each city prioritized the outcome of civic engagement, intentionally working to build trust and cultivate a culture of co-creation and stewardship. Today, residents of these neighborhoods are more engaged in shaping the future of their communities and are experiencing a greater sense of agency, pride and hope.
Moving at the speed of trust
Akron focused its investments in three neighborhoods — Summit Lake, Ohio & Erie Canal Park and downtown — and the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail that connects them. In Summit Lake, a key focus was to revive the glacial lake that borders the neighborhood and shares its name as a place of civic pride and play.
When Akron Civic Commons started, the public space along the lake was underused and seen as unsafe, and community members who attended an early community meeting were skeptical that anything would change. “My first thought was, ‘Here we go. A bunch of professionals coming in to tell us what they are going to do. They don’t care about Summit Lake and low-income people’s wants or needs,’” said Starleen Saulsberry, a Summit Lake neighbor who later wrote about her experience for the local paper.
In spite of their skepticism, residents at the meeting shared their ideas and concerns and asked lots of questions. Then they waited, many of them not expecting anything to change. But within a few months, a trailer showed up one weekend with bikes, helmets and a huge barbecue grill, and a few months after that a beachhead was crafted so people could enjoy the lakeside every day with porch swings, picnic tables, umbrellas and grills. These improvements brought to fruition ideas suggested by community members.
More improvements followed over the years as neighbors got more involved and the Akron Civic Commons team continued to co-create. Today, Summit Lake Park offers canoeing and kayaking, fishing, community gardens, cultural programming, a farmers’ market and a nature center. Spurred by the success of Akron Civic Commons and supported by $10 million in new investment, a trail is being built around the perimeter of the lake to reconnect the adjacent neighborhoods and, later this year, the city will break ground on improvements on the lake’s north shore including a new boathouse, canoe launch area and pavilion.
All of this was conceived in collaboration with local residents as the civic commons team worked intentionally to address difficult histories and build trust. Over the years, residents became members of the Akron Civic Commons team, sat on steering committees, and were hired to fill available positions such as park ambassadors, nature center greeters, storytellers and data collectors.
The team also underwent a paradigm shift in how they viewed their work. Rather than planners of a series of transactions, they started to see themselves as nurturers of a network of relationships focused on supporting residents to become stewards and advocates for their communities.
Unique approaches, inspirational outcomes
Detroit emphasized stewardship and co-creation in the process to create Ella Fitzgerald Park, a new park that is becoming the heart of the Fitzgerald neighborhood and provides residents a place to gather and play.
Before it was a park, the space was a collection of 26 vacant lots and, based on observation mapping before the park was built, almost no one went to the site. To design and build the park, the Civic Commons team engaged with residents in creative ways, such as holding cookouts in vacant lots, offering pop-up bike repair clinics and hosting a resident-led series called Activity Day to inspire programming in the future park.
The ideas and feedback shared at these gatherings allowed the community’s identity to be integrated into the park. Residents suggested the park’s name and, in collaboration with artist Hubert Massey, designed and installed two mosaic murals. After the park opened, it became a beloved local hub for socializing and play, increasing public life in the neighborhood. In 2018, 77% of intercept survey respondents said they visited Ella Fitzgerald Park at least weekly, and more than one-third said they visited daily, drawn by a custom play space, basketball courts and fun times with friends and neighbors.
Today, residents play an active role in the upkeep of the park, mini-grants support resident-led programming, and Friends of Ella Fitzgerald Park stewardship organization, which recently received its nonprofit status from the State of Michigan and expects its federal 501(c)3 status this year, will partner with local block clubs on the park’s long-term care.
“When I first moved here, I feel like everyone just really didn’t care about their neighborhood. They would throw trash out their windows or they didn’t really care to walk two feet to the garbage can. And then over the course of a year or so, people are picking up their trash and they’re taking pride in their houses and fixing up their houses. That was a really positive change for me.”
— I’sha Schultz Spradlin, College Core Block Club
Residents were also involved in research efforts, serving as primary data collectors to understand changes in everything from public life to perceptions of safety. This created transparency about the research while also spurring changes of mind in some of the data collectors. For instance, after observing the busy McNichols corridor for a number of days as a data collector, Stephanie Harbin, a neighborhood resident and block club president, realized that many of her neighbors rode bikes and that McNichols was an unsafe corridor for them. This completely shifted her opinion, and she became a champion of protected bike lanes in the neighborhood.
Belief in a better future
In cities where civic commons teams worked intentionally to support civic engagement, community members are not only becoming active participants in their community’s future — their beliefs about that future are becoming more hopeful.
“I see the future of the neighborhood. I see more people looking at their neighborhood more positive, instead of looking at it as if it would never get better.”
— Marcus Saulsberry, Summit Lake resident
In Detroit, surveys reveal a dramatic change in sentiment. In 2017, only 34% of Fitzgerald residents said they felt the neighborhood had improved over the past few years. But just 18 months into Detroit Civic Commons, 89% of people visiting Ella Fitzgerald Park or the McNichols commercial corridor said they felt the neighborhood had improved recently and 96% said they felt the neighborhood would improve some or a lot over the next few years.
All of this points to the potential for public space to foster civic purpose, participation and pride. When intentionally focused on elevating public life, building trust, nurturing stewardship and fostering a culture of advocacy, public space investments can change how people envision the future of their community — and encourage them to take an active role in that future.
Read The Power of the Commons for more inspiring impacts from Reimagining the Civic Commons’ first five demonstration cities.
Reimagining the Civic Commons is a collaboration of The JPB Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The Kresge Foundation, William Penn Foundation, and local partners.
