Guerilla urbanism “asking forgiveness, not permission”
A grassroots movement known as ‘guerilla urbanism’ is emerging in the US, where community groups bypass bureaucracy with innovative improvements to the urban spaces they care about. Their mantra is ‘ask forgiveness, not permission.’
The guerilla urbanism movement was the focus of a recent webinar hosted by the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) – ‘On the Park Bench: Guerilla Urbanism.’
Robert Steuteville from the CNU writes, “From toilet plungers for bike lanes to community gardens on vacant lots to locally sourced incremental development, citizens are finding creative ways to make urban space.”
During the webinar, small developer, Jason Hyman talks about a not for profit organisation in Houston D3tM, or Do the Things That Matter, guerilla urbanism that ‘disrupts’ existing systems to create change. They’ve been working on ‘disrupting’ the gentrification of Texas and bypassing the ‘traditional systems’ to create affordable housing for everyone. They take turns teaching each other, assisting with capital and sharing wisdom.
Planner for Houston, Margaret Brown, talks about taking a practical approach to creating better roads, noting the group, ‘Crosswalk Collective’ who paint their own crosswalks with yellow and white paint.
Each speaker encourages everyone to get involved in Guerilla Urbanism. Hyman said, “Be vocal. Get involved. Take action.”
Photo: Margaret Brown at a Houston community garden, screenshot from the CNU webinar.
Could seating be the secret to boosting active travel?
The UK Walking and Cycling Index, a biennial study by Sustrans last published in 2023, offers research for understanding city centre active travel trends and how to better support walking, wheeling and cycling.
The People and Places Partnership, publisher of guides for LGAs on revitalising town centres, writes that “the most popular change to encourage residents to walk more is to create nicer places along streets to rest” – with benches, trees and shelters.
To encourage walking and wheeling, resting spots were found to be even more important to respondants than better pavement accessibility such as level surfaces and dropped kerbs, and than more frequent and quicker road crossings, they write.
Sixty percent of respondants agreed that increasing space for people socialising, walking and cycling on their local high street would improve their local area.
The partnership’s article also highlights key data around opportunities to increase the role of cycling in cities, trends around balancing modes of travel, and changes found by the Sustrans study over time. Read the full article.
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Melissa Gerke, our Communications and Education Specialist, is bringing a fun, interactive and informative presentation about our carbon neutral journey and latest products to customers in cities around Australia and in the US. In 30 minutes (plus Q&A) we will explore materials and finishes, touch and feel samples, and bond with your colleagues over delicious treats. There will also be a mystery prize for a lucky winner (optional). 2024 cities and dates include: Select from three catering options (optional): To book, contact Melissa Gerke mgerke@streetfurniture.com
Street Furniture Australia’s entire product range and manufacturing operation has received carbon neutral certification through Climate Active™. Achieving carbon neutral certification marks a significant milestone in our operation and the culmination of a four year long process of detailed measurement and analysis. Climate Active™ is the only Australian government-backed carbon neutral certification programme for businesses to measure, reduce, and offsets their carbon emissions. It is one of the most rigorous carbon-neutral programs in the world. An approved Emissions Reduction Strategy (ERS) is central to achieving certification through Climate Active. Street Furniture Australia has elected to use SBTi validated science-based targets to ensure their ERS is meaningful and aligns with the 2015 Paris Agreement – to limit global temperature rises to 1.5℃ above pre-industrial levels. For those emissions that can’t be …
