HMW play a more active role in shaping our built environment & the initiatives that will impact us the most?

PT I: understanding the landscape - ACTIVATING COMMUNITY AGENCY IN WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN

Overview

The project "Facilitating & Building Community Agency in Williamsburg" embarked on the first part of an investigative journey to understand how residents of Williamsburg, Brooklyn could exert greater influence on their immediate environment. The research pivoted from urban planning to a democratic lens, revealing a dire need for ethnographic and human-centered approaches to enable effective community agency.

Approach

• Desk Research: Diving into community definitions, Williamsburg's history, and participatory governance. This phase involved unraveling the complexities of gentrification, rezoning in NYC, and understanding the fabric of community from various authoritative and academic sources.

• Expert and Ethnographic Interviews: Conversations with professionals from the Danish Design Center, Grand Street BID, Design Trust for Public Space, ANHD, and academia offered valuable insights into community power dynamics, governance, and advocacy.

• Observation Mapping: Participation in the Williamsburg-Greenpoint Community Board meeting provided firsthand exposure to community engagement practices and highlighted areas for improvement.

Insights & Intervention

Key insights indicated a sporadic organization of communities, often reactive rather than proactive. A lack of engaging community boards and insufficient representation of advocacy groups in Williamsburg suggested a gap in community governance. Through these findings, the Community Deck was conceptualized as an intervention to democratize participation and foster community conversations.

Next Steps

• Continuing research on community engagement and the impact of civic participation on urban spaces.

• Conducting rigorous observation of community board meetings in NYC to gain broader insights.

• Engaging Williamsburg residents through co-creative workshops to develop prototypes for more democratized community board meetings.

Impact & Reflection

The semester underscored the challenges faced by community boards and the pressing need for more inclusive and accessible platforms for civic engagement. Despite setbacks and the steep learning curve of navigating community politics, the project's outcomes, particularly the Community Deck, provide a promising step towards empowering residents and fostering participatory governance. This work serves as a testament to the necessity of persistence, empathy, and innovative thinking in the pursuit of meaningful community impact.