My community development class has been endlessly fascinating. At the very least, it is an enlightening and gently humbling way to remember that when an architect gets involved, all the really important decisions have already been made by people who really know whats going on.
My guidelines for architects planning on working in a community, based on our readings and lectures:
- Understand how the community sees itself
- Learn enough to be dangerous
- Learn how to translate between specialists and residents
- You are not "We"
- Understand your own assumptions coming to the table
- If you can find finding, people will hire you
- If you can effect real change, people will line up behind you
- The socioeconomic system is a game in which the rules are made by those with power; the balance of power is redistributed through politics; real change is only possible through political action.
- Almost everything in the world is made through decisions of human beings. Poverty, inequality, and injustice are not accidental, but intentional.
- The goal of planning and social work is to give communities the ability to self-organize and take collective action to address issues which effect them.
- The neighborhood is where culture is initially conveyed- it tells children what society is, how it works, what it values, and what its aspirations are.
- Semi-public > Public because people will take responsibility for places they consider to be theirs.
- Momentum > individual ideas
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