Ever dreamed of making the streets outside your abode more livable, pedestrian-friendly, and community-oriented?City Repair in Portland, Oregon hosts an annual Village Building Convergence where hundreds of people come together to build diverse projects for the benefit of their communites and to take back their streets via a process known as the Intersection Repair.This involves painting streets with a high-visiblity mural that creates a public square for residents to gather and one which gently encourages drivers to slow down when approaching these spaces. Over time the neighbors further enhance the transformation by adding amenities like benches, community bulletin boards, and introducing gardens & art. As you'll see, the possibilites are endless.StreetFilms visited three of the Intersection Repairs and spoke with Mark Lakeman co-founder of City Repair, Greg Raisman, the Portland DOT Liason, and scores of residents & volunteers about why they were doing it.
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[intro music]</font> <br>
</p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Mark:</i> [00:16]
So the village building convergence is a way where people come together
for ten days and they do a myriad of different things, all of which
talk about economy, ecology, community and power, where power is held.
And they are very diverse, so there’s many different things focusing
on many dimensions of civic life. We’ve done about 23 to 25
projects actually being built, and some of them are intersection interventions
where people are embedding onto the street surface a graphic symbol
of the community, where the community have said, well, we want to be
symbolised by a tree, or we want to be symbolised by the ripples…
a ripple effect as if we’re on a pond surface.</font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[music]</font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Marnie:</i> [01:05]
This year I’m the organiser of the Sunnyside Piazza painting.
We are repainting the intersection which is a beautiful sunflower.
And it’s just been a lot of fun just getting the neighbours involved
and so many kids are out today and we do this every year, and every
year the design is different. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Speaker:</i> [01:22]
I think the great thing about this type of project is that it brings
the community together. I think, you know, often times today we’re
very separated, we’re behind our computers and we’re behind our
TV’s.</font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Speaker:</i> [01:35]
Often times, you know, everybody’s in their cars or they’re off
at work or doing something else, but this something, somewhat centrally
located for this, three, four, five blocks and people come and enjoy
each other. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Lisa:</i> [01:48]
So we went through a lot of steps. We have to get neighbours within
the four block radius to all sign off and agree on the design.
So we have a revocable permit to paint this. But every year we
have a block party to close off the street to get the neighbours to
sign again. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Greg:</i> [02:02]
When City Repair comes to the Portland Office of Transportation, they
need to work with us on design issues to make sure that we have designs
that are safe, that function well for the street and I help them with
conversations with the engineers and with permitting groups to make
sure that all the design features work well for the public right-of-way.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Speaker:</i> [02:23]
A lot of these kids here are a group of home schooled and this is their
community, so this project…</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Speaker:</i> [02:29]
We just came out because we’d been learning about urban lifestyles
and urban planning and we wanted to take ownership of something around
us because we see a lot of people that kind of live in the cities but
they kind of take it for granted.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Aaron:</i> [02:41]
Everything that I do is about making streets safer for children and
making streets more accessible. And by slowing down the traffic,
what you do is you make a street into a commons again, which it normally
is not. So what this intersection does is by going and creating
a very bright, very strong statement in the intersection, that this
is different from every other intersection, people automatically see
that there’s something to pay attention to.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Speaker:</i> [03:08]
Instead of having streets and intersections create dividing lines in
the cities, these kind of things make it a community, it makes it a
meeting point instead of a dividing point. And that’s one of
the most important things about it as well. And as you can see,
it works perfectly. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Marnie:</i> [03:22]
I think that one of the most interesting things about this intersection
is that it has sparked other kinds of public artworks around this intersection.
So for example, there’s a local artist in town who ties little toy
horses to old horse tethering rings around town and so we’ve got a
bunch of those here . Some people have spray painted some of the
barrels that we planted, some plants in to decorate the intersection.
It’s just become just like a safe place to create.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Lisa:</i> [03:49]
So this is our neighbourhood poetry garden. So we have a bench,
a little lantern here, and this is our poetry box, inside here’s the
poetry book and people just come by, kids, adults, they come by and
read poems and leave notes here and draw pictures. I mean we have
chalk so that people can come and write with chalk on the sidewalk,
make poems. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Speaker:</i> [04:11]
This is community at its deepest roots. That’s why we need people
in our lives.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Marnie:</i> [04:17]
I live right up there on that… that’s my balcony, and some nights
I can hear… someone will come and play the flutes, sit and play the
flutes right. I mean it’s just surreal. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[music]</font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Pedro:</i> [04:47]
In Share-It Square what we’re trying to do is recreate the village
within the urban grid. You might notice the intersection repaired
mural. So we’re taking the intersection, which is usually a
place that divides people and is controlled by a transportation infrastructure,
and we’re transforming that into an actual public meeting place.
We have different places in Share-It Square that evoke the needs of
the community. We have a place for the kids, a kids playhouse.
It’s a place that has games and toys and neighbourhood kids will come
and check it out, see if someone’s brought something there, maybe
even meet some other kids in the neighbourhood. Welcome to the
information station at Share-It Square. This is a village need
to share information, kind of like the Town Cryer, and we have that
ability here with the blackboard and various bulletin boards to post
information. We also have a local newspaper here, it’s called
The Selwood Bee, so we thought well, what better way to have, create
a paper box to distribute The Bee and to create a beehive for The Selwood
Bee. We started this out as kind of a produce exchange station,
you know, you get so many zucchinis in the summertime, so here’s a
place to put them to share with others. And it’s just transformed
itself kind of into this free cycle distribution centre. We also
have the neighbourhood library which works in the same fashion.
If you have extra books you bring them, you want a book you take them.
There have been studies done about people’s sitting behaviour.
People like to have a variety of choices , so we’re trying to create
as many sitting options as possible, even in this concentrated space
of an intersection. This is a free water station and our neighbours
keep it supplied with hot water, and all you have to do is put your
water in your cup, a lot of cups available, teas and sweeteners, and
you have yourself a free cup of tea. So the watering hole is something
else that every village centre needs. You need a place to meet
and here, like you get people who didn’t know each other and they
get to meet around this structure.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>John:</i> [07:03]
We did get married here in the intersection back in October.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Lyn:</i> [07:06] That’s
how much we love it. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>John:</i> [07:07]
It was a phenomenal event. We got tremendous help from the community.
Like 50 people contributed their talent and time and energy to help
us get married in our community. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Lyn:</i> [07:18] It
felt so much more than a wedding, you know. I wasn’t wearing
a white dress, I was wearing something pink with fake fur and balls
on it and it was just exciting. It was a community event and we
just wanted everybody to feel like they were, you know, it was a love
fest and everybody was getting married. People are still now just
like hi, it’s amazing. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>John:</i> [07:38]
We’re going to get married next year. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Lyn:</i> [07:41] Yeah,
come. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>John:</i> [07:42]
You’re all invited.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[music]</font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Speaker:</i> [07:58]
You said that you knew Freda.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Speaker:</i> [07:59]
Aha.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Speaker:</i> [08:00]
And what would she probably think about this tribute?</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Speaker:</i> [08:03]
Oh, she would be delighted. Absolutely delighted. She loved people.
She was a lovely, lovely lady, friends to everyone.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Thad:</i> [08:10]
The neighbourhood is very excited about this, like we’ve been excited
for a long time. And it all started mainly because we were concerned
about traffic and speeding cars going through here. There’s
been a few accidents and there are a lot of kids on the block.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Ed:</i> [08:24] Yeah,
we’re just trying to make it a safer neighbourhood. We’ve
got another crop of young kids coming up and we love our kids and we
want to have a safe and happy community for them. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Linda:</i> [08:34]
I figured by this time in the afternoon everybody would be sort of scattering
or going home. It’s amazing. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Marnie:</i> [08:44]
Some of the most amazing wonderful people I’ve ever met, some of the
closest friends that I have, I’ve met while repainting this intersection.
So it really does build community and it’s just a great thing.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Pedro:</i> [08:53]
We find that when you have a neighbourhood place where there are people
on the streets, the cars will slow down. So this kind of colour,
even though we don’t have Stop signs on these streets, it encourages
people to slow down.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Lyn:</i> [09:08] Share-It
Square being the first intersection repair has like inspired so many
others. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Lisa:</i> [09:13]
A big community event. It’s great for families and kids and
just for creating a sense of place.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Ed:</i> [09:18] I
know that the neighbours on the next intersection were here and they…
we have talked about that maybe next year and they’re all pumped up
about it, so I think we may see a much [unintelligible 09:27] around
the neighbourhood. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Linda:</i> [09:28]
Some of these neighbours I’ve known for 30 years and a lot of them
are new and about the third generation of little kids since I’ve been
here so way fun day. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Speaker:</i> [09:38]
I think there’s something really special happening in Portland because
a lot of socially aware, socially and environmentally sensitive people
that are, you know, flocking here and it’s creating quite a unique
special community. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Speaker:</i> [09:49]
Portland I think is a city that really respects community involvement,
so projects like this, a lot of people get involved.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Mark:</i> [09:59]
Conversion of a sustainable society that’s I’m interested in is
one that is characterised by more ease, more time with children and
family, friends, more time for myself and my partner. So that’s
the kind of sustainable society that I’m interested in.</font> <br>
</p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[music]</font> <br></p>
http://transcriptdivas.ca/transcription-canada/
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