Setting a national agenda for the civic commons
“What is the first word in the American constitution?” journalist E.J. Dionne asked us. “We!” the audience responded. Dionne was delighted. “I love hearing audiences say that, because we don’t say ‘we’ very much anymore.” In these divided times, Dionne reminded us that our American tradition honors not just individualism, but individualism and the greater good — the individual rights and liberties that start the Declaration of Independence are balanced at the end when signatories pledge their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to act together in common defense of those rights.
Dionne spoke to those of us attending the fifth Civic Commons Studio at the end of March, held this year in Memphis. After three years and multiple projects — either built or started on the ground — these convenings moved from helping practitioners and city leaders imagine what’s possible to an open and frank discussion of project impacts, emerging practices for creating public places that welcome all, and the airing of common challenges in engaging residents meaningfully in the work. Yet what Dionne made clear to those of us in the room that day was that in doing this work, we weren’t just engaged in creating better public places. We are creating a movement that can build a better country.
The broad themes of Dionne’s speech that day were evident across Memphis during the three-day Studio and helped flesh out the national vision of a refreshed and reimagined public sphere:
The importance of creating and multiplying social capital. Central to a functioning and healthy society is the ability of government, working with partners, to create and multiply bridging social capital — the networks of relationships that connect diverse people, promote opportunity and keep democracy healthy. Social capital is what connects teenagers to their first work experience, connects volunteers to organizations that are improving local communities and increases customers for small businesses. Any effective civic assets work, argued Dionne, emphasizes the creation and growth of social capital just as much as the growth of the local economy.
In Memphis’ River Garden — a formerly underutilized park along the Mississippi River that has been reimagined into a thriving public place that opened last fall — we could almost see the social capital built among the children and adults swinging joyfully in the hammocks and the groups of Memphians sitting at tables and around fire pits, enjoying each other’s company. The former maintenance staff have transformed themselves from people tasked with simple grounds keeping to River Garden Rangers, local park rangers who greet every guest, plan activities for children and adults, provide information about nearby amenities and keep the parks spotless. Their work connects visitors to the landscape of the river and to each other — creating new social capital in a place that people formerly didn’t even bother visiting.
Making what’s public great again. Dionne reminded us of another great American tradition: the expansive desire to create shared places and shared institutions. Even in the middle of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Act, which created the country’s 100+ land grant colleges. Many of these land grant colleges remain highly treasured centers of public education today, 150 years later. A few decades after the Lincoln administration, President Theodore Roosevelt convinced Americans to preserve the most beautiful of our wild places in various ways: 150 national forests, 51 federal bird reserves, 4 national game preserves, 5 national parks and 18 national monuments.
Yet today, what’s “public” is often considered inferior. We’ve lost the idea that what is public can be good, Dionne says, a phenomenon that leads to continually diminished expectations about the public realm. At Cossitt Library — a Memphis historical landmark currently undergoing extensive renovations — we saw the beginnings of an entirely new public space. When open, Cossitt Library will become a place of learning and creation unlike most traditional libraries. Alongside the books and computers will be performance spaces for artists and dancers, a café featuring local food, an outdoor courtyard with seating, community meeting spaces and even listening booths for vinyl records. Local non-profit organizations are planning workforce development and small business incubator programs to serve Memphians out of the reconceptualized space.
In creating these kinds of new and reimagined public places, Dionne told those of us working on improving civic assets that we are “pioneers of public space.” Our city teams in Akron, Chicago, Detroit, Memphis and Philadelphia have been hard at work creating high quality public places that welcome and serve everyone and serve the new and emerging needs and wants of the community. In the process, they are helping people in these communities rediscover the greatness of what is public and shared.
Infrastructure as more than roads and transit. “Life isn’t just getting somewhere, it’s wanting to be somewhere,” Dionne told us. In public places, people can live their lives with other people — talking, laughing, arguing, resting, contemplating — and are not removed from one another by technology, as commonplace as television or the screen of a smartphone. At a time when social isolation is literally killing Americans and political divisions threaten civil society, we need to redefine infrastructure as more than just something that takes you from one place to another. Yes, we need to rebuild America’s transportation infrastructure, but we also need to rebuild the civic and social infrastructure of our parks, libraries and community centers.
Dionne ended his talk with a desire to ensure people use civic assets to spur boisterous discussion among people who think differently. “We don’t meet people who think differently from us anymore, and that’s a loss for the country,” he said. “You are trying to build an America where we come together again, at least some of the time. You are trying to build a country where we encounter people who are different from us, and we do so with joy.”
As our group of urban planners, landscape architects, municipal department heads, staff to elected officials, parks, recreation and library managers, non-profit leaders, philanthropists and neighborhood activists reflected on the last three years, it became clear that this work has fundamentally changed the ambition and purpose of those involved. It has changed our expectations for our civic assets. We’ve done a lot, and there is much more to do.
“It really does feel like we’re at the beginning of this work,” the City of Detroit’s Director of Planning and Development Maurice Cox remarked to attendees. “We’ve been at this for three years, the partnerships are strong, there are some physical changes on the ground, and then you begin to realize that it’s not enough. This work drives your aspirations higher.”
We must all have higher aspirations for our civic commons, as Dionne says, “to demonstrate that public things can be good, that public things can be beautiful and that public things can lift up our entire country.”
Reimagining the Civic Commons is a collaboration between The JPB Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The Kresge Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation and local partners.
