Reclaiming Our Streets: a Model for Social Change

Engwicht recommends street reclaiming activists follow five basic steps (based on the collective experience of neighborhood activists all over the world):

1. Reclaim your street as a socializing space

• Move some of your normal activities closer to the street (e.g. reading your book in your front yard or on the sidewalk - working on painting, refinishing, and other do-it-yourself projects in your parking space instead of your garage or basement).
• Supervise children playing on the sidewalk or in the roadway.
• Use a walking school bus (addresses parental fears of traffic and stranger danger) to walk your kids to school.
  
• Walk to local destinations and greet people you encounter.
• Hold a Traffic Taming Street Party.

• Drive within the speed limit and encourage your neighbors to put Pace Car bumper stickers on their cars
• Teach your kids to walk or cycle.
• Reduce your own car use to a minimum.

3. Intrigue travelers by engaging them in the social life of the street.

• Wave to motorists.
• Put something intriguing in your front yard or parking space
• Blur the boundary between your private home and the street (take down your front fence and curtains - as Engwicht describes in Mental Speed Bumps, European communities do this commonly to maintain the street as a social space).

4. Create "Linger Nodes" - to facilitate social life in your street, increasing intrigue and uncertainty.

• Create a socializing node on your private land (seating, drinking fountain community notice board, sculpture, etc) or on the sidewalk.
• Encourage local businesses to connect with the street by placing an activity outside their premises.

• Build the social life of the street.
• Put "furniture" and "art" in your room.
• Work with your city on design elements that make your street feel more like a room (for example a landscaped entryway, a ceiling made of flags or banners, and walls created from furniture or art).

Next Page  1  |  2

(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).