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Community Development: bringing richness to your community
What makes a community rich? Can we understand wealth through happiness?
John Ruskin wrote, "There is no wealth but life?that country is the
richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human
beings." Below are some do-it-yourself suggestions on how to create
wealth by enriching your neighbourhood and community life. Examples
of how to plan and act out these initiatives are provided to guide and
inspire you!
Take Back the Street
Create communal areas for play and interaction in your front yard.
Pedestrian-only streets give more opportunities for life to spill out of
individual homes and into the neighbourhood. Not only does this promote
fun and increased interaction, it also fosters a safer environment for kids
play. Permanently re-zoning streets to make them car-free may not yet be a
realistic option, but limiting traffic temporarily
is a good place to start.
Plan: Coordinate with your neighbours
to create a rotating schedule of
street closures on the weekends,
allowing only local traffic to pass
through.
- We Are What We Do (check out
Action 45 in the Do Something
section) wearewhatwedo.ca
Act: Get permission from the City of
Toronto to temporarily close streets in
your neighbourhood
toronto.ca/transportation/street_events/index.htm
Integrate Instead of Isolate
Every neighbourhood has a system of informal economies that operate
within the greater community. Harness them. From the skilled
handyman down the street to the green thumb next door, the pool of
local expertise can enable the emergence of a self-sustaining community
by making these skills a commodity.
This reinterpretation of "manufacturing" can build and strengthen a
community's identity, foster regionalism and ultimately create a unique
local economy.
Plan: Synchronize with your neighbours
to create a network of support
and mutual benefit.
- i-neighbors (a free service to link
you and your neighbour)
i-neighbors.org
Act: Establish mobile market places,
virtual or physical, to connect goods
and services to people with limited
access.
Food for Thought, Thought for Food
Without rural life, an urban lifestyle cannot be maintained. Around the
world, farmers play an integral role in sustaining our cities. When the average
North American sits down to a meal, each ingredient has typically
travelled 1,500 miles (2,400 km).
Plan: Strengthen the rural-urban relationship
by supporting local produce
Act: For one year, Alisa Smith and
James MacKinnon only bought and
gathered food and drink that lay within
a 100-mile radius of their
apartment in Vancouver, B.C. Follow a
100 Mile Diet yourself (or plan a 100
Mile dinner party for family and
friends where you can introduce the
idea).
Article by: The Institute Without Boundaries
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