Setting the table for community empowerment
“Set the table for communities to, in a sense, self-govern and take back…land that they themselves can use, both for recreation and growing vegetables, but also as a locus for collective action.” — Deborah Marton, Executive Director of the New York Restoration Project (NYRP)
In Season 2, Episode 5 of The Move Podcast, co-hosts Ceasar McDowell and Ayushi Roy interview Deborah Marton, Executive Director of the New York Restoration Project (NYRP). NYRP is a nonprofit working to leverage public space as a platform for community building, self-determination and identity-building. Its operating conviction is that all New Yorkers deserve beautiful, high-quality public space within ready walking distance of their homes.
To that end, NYRP works with government institutions, including the New York City Housing Authority, and community organizations, such as faith-based institutions, community centers, and senior centers, to build open civic space that serves as a locus for collective community action.
NYRP plants trees, renovates gardens, restores parks, and transforms open space for communities throughout New York City’s five boroughs. Notably, NYRP is New York’s only citywide conservancy, and it brings private resources to low-income communities that lack public support and investment.
The open spaces that NYRP help meet a range of community needs, as governance of these spaces is ultimately sustained by the local communities. NYRP believes, as Deborah Marton put it, that “it’s really not…for us [NYRP] to determine what happens in that space because we don’t live there and we don’t care for it.” Depending on community needs, these open spaces transform into anything from quiet sitting areas, playgrounds, community gardens, among other purposes.
Across the country in Illinois, the Bloomington Community Orchard — co-founded by poet Ross Gay — also works to provide a public commons with a similar purpose. This organization, which Gay describes as a “free-fruit-for-all food justice project,” seeks to advance food security and sovereignty; community engagement and decision-making; and sustainability and horicultural education for residents.
Like NYRP, Bloomington Community Orchard partners with government, in this case the Bloomington Parks and Recreation Department. It operates under a governing board and subcommittees composed of orchard volunteers who are community members. The orchard is publicly owned, and the harvest is available to everyone in the community.
Similar to NYRP, Bloomington Community Orchard aspires to be a space for community decision-making, and to “serve as a model of civic engagement that fosters leadership development, artistic expression, and continual learning.” In cultivating this public commons, Bloomington Community Orchard hopes to provide a space for recreation and community-building for its diverse community. Driven by the need for green and open space in cities, it also advocates for an expansion of community orchards and individual growers.
At the core of both organizations is an unwavering belief in community decision-making, the value of local expertise, and communal ownership. The success of these self-governance models speak volumes about communities’ desire for civic democracy and power over their daily lives.
