How to still feel connected to your neighbourhood! COVID-19 edition
By Tyson Bankert
Connecting with Place, by Asset Mapping!
For many of us, one way to find a mental break during a global pandemic is to walk around our neighbourhood. Fourteen months later, walking has (sometimes begrudgingly) become the one way to connect with my neighbourhood. Connecting with neighbours and the public has been restricted. However, a new renewed love for my neighbourhood has helped me through the pandemic.
Finding new adventures through walking, slowing down, noticing the unfamiliar and reconnecting with the sense of place has been rewarding. As I can't see my neighbours, walking has helped me maintain my connection to my neighbourhood.
Reflecting on the pastime of walking, leads me to think of the Urbanist Jane Jacobs and the Jane's Walk. Jane Jacobs was a champion of getting to know your neighbourhood by walking. Walking provided a more intimate relationship with a community. Jane's passion and influence has created the annual global event the Janes Walk.
In the spirit of Jane's Walk, and as walking has become a pandemic pastime, it got us thinking about mapping a community's physical assets. These physical assets can take many forms to identify the physical attributes in a neighbourhood.
Where does physical asset mapping come from?
Physical asset mapping has its roots from Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) is an approach to building just, sustainable, and resilient communities. “ABCD looks for, and starts from people’s gifts and strengths (assets). These assets equip people to create local opportunities” (Tamarack Institute). ABCD typically focuses on the possibilities, as opposed to the needs or deficits of a community - and this shift in framing radically shifts the ways in which we engage and activate community (Ivis Garcia).
It recognizes that there is power in communities, and reframes how we engage in community to ensure that what emerges is for community, by community. As such, ABCD is “driven by the community—not external agencies. While professionals (or external catalysts) can play an important role, their focus should be on assisting communities to drive their own development” (Graeme Stuart, Sustaining Community).
Join us this Monday (May 3, 2021) to learn more about Jane's Walk and how to physically map the assets in your community, register here!