Most Mondays, a representative from our project will be attending organizational meetings for VBC6 sponsored by Portland's own City Repair Project. There are over thirty sites like ours participating in this event, which will be replete with potlucks, dances, workshops, seminars, and lectures by esteemed natural builders and community builders. (I'll post the schedule of events when I get it.)
This week we started the meeting by going around and saying what placemaking meant to us. I thought that sharing what "placemaking" means to each of us would be a nice way to begin our blog (and to give us practice leaving comments, if need be).
Our project's official line is all about connecting...creating...and a few more c-words. I noted when it was my turn to speak that, having worked on this project for more than a year now, my understanding of placemaking has changed a great deal. Most important among these changes is an understanding that placemaking--despite the artifacts left behind to the contrary--is a very temporary and ephemeral thing, a thing that exists only when there are people in a space giving it the care and attention that it needs to become a place.
Welcome, neighbors, to our new virtual space! I hope you will take the care and attention it takes to turn this into a true community place that supports and supplements our heavier material world efforts on the corner of 72nd and Woodstock.
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