THE CITY IS THE NEW FRONTIER: Ideas for Emergence
We’ve been thinking, thinking for a while about the fractal power of human beings - pushed to some kind of boundary, and, there, deciding that the boundary does not exist. The problem is, and some of you will agree, that our cities are still the terra of conservative controls - dreams of 1950s street grids, governments supporting go-go capitalism over slow capitalism, the thrill of Fortune 500 companies, the material and psychpathology of racism and classism. We are still living in the Revanchist city, morphed into the carceral archipelago (thanks, Mike Davis) and fortified/sanctified/preserved by some set of delusions - some set of self-righteous non-human driven imperatives. That’s the crisis, right? We stopped caring about real people, so we let these places go empty, tip over and spill east and west and north and south - diffusing across the land…drive til you qualify. So what do we do? We need to start combining our very real, very strong sensibility towards empathy, with a community focus on our gifts, the exchange of ideas and values and beliefs. We need to understand the currency of our attitudes, the gravity of communication, of curiosity. Somewhere, between the high-tailed flight and the cow-pasture turned neighborhood, we completely deserted each other. I don’t understand why the returning prodigal urbanists deride the long-time neighborhood salts, why they frame people as obstructionist or ignorant. As if it’s okay to consider the perspective/preferences of someone as negligible - as if that wasn’t just some facaded form of prejudice channeling the cold spirit of Modernism. We need an alternate urbanism: the not urbanism. The Human Urbanism, the specific connection to the quality of life, not the calculus of that quality - not the certification of that quality, the messy and stochastic guts of human beings living in a place. To ask, simply, what am I doing to make life for people BETTER. What am I doing? Today, tomorrow, next week, next month - who am I helping? Am I just someone deluded by their own city zip code? Spoil the fantasy. Here are ten ideas that City Frontier plans to launch and others we support in St. Louis - ways to reshape the place we call home: 10) Kitchen UP! A pop-up restaurant flex-space for Downtown St. Louis. One-day cooking/dining site for budding/fledgling culinary entrepreneurs, organized through application process. Founders handle all permitting, safety issues - we want people to bring their ideas and ingredients, and we provide the rest. Low risk, high potential. 9) Mound City Tool Library. Lending library for the City of St. Louis, tools, manuals, guides - supervised by community organizers and trades-professionals. Operates similar to City Greens Grocery (http://www.midtowncitygreens.org/ also a serious and powerful initiative) - tiered salary-based membership pricing, but with the same benefits. Take a hammer, saw, wheel-barrow - why buy when you can share? 8) Flood Wall Cityguide. The no-car no-problem exploration manual for St. Louis - travel the city by foot, bike, and public transit. A collection of day-guides, connecting north and south, east and west - suburban and urban. Flood Wall strives to tell the authentic story of St. Louis, local businesses, events, ideas, groups, and personalities. 7) MidWestival: The Celebration of Rural/Urban. A weekend festival highlighting the unique history, ideas, and identity of St. Louis. Folk, blues, hip-hop, jazz fill the air, while beard-competitions, vegetable contests, an urban barn-raising, pork steaks, and all-night parties. What matters about your city? Why are you here? 6) SpinCycle. A pop-up bike-powered recharge spot in Downtown St. Louis. With stationary bike-powered generators, and spaces for your own bikes, SpinCycle allows people to bring in their own devices, plug them in and juice them up. The space will also charge up a film projector for screenings on Saturday night. 5) City Sound Tracks 2.0. The second edition of the first mass transit music festival in America (www.citysoundtracks.org). The dates and bands are being arranged, but this is one of those events that really demands your support. We also dig STL LOUD (www.stlloud.org, donate today!) - another project from a CST leader. 4) Sprout Change. The first social enterprise accelerator in the Midwest, a place for world-changing ideas to become successful businesses. More info at www.sproutstl.com - check them out and give them a ring! 3) Open/Closed: Exploring Vacant Property in St. Louis. The first vacant property summit in St. Louis, a two-day series of films, talks, workshops, tours, and panels about the state of vacant property in St. Louis (1 in 5 properties) - and what we can do about it right now. 2) Confabulous. An ingenuity, curiosity, and creativity festival for St. Louis - an opportunity to see what great, ambitious, daring, and surreal work is being pioneered by local artists. 1) The Brick Bank. The deconstruction, reuse, and preservation firm for St. Louis. A cooperative LLC to systematically demolish vacant buildings, and the recognition of an already existing brick market. How do we save and stabilize our neighborhoods, and ensure that the benefits/profits stay in our most vulnerable areas? A social enterprise to support the city, preserve its identity, and make an impact on real people.
Many of these ideas are in the early stages, while others are at the brink of being announced to the community. If you’re interested in helping with any of these, we’re in contact with the organizers of all of them - and they want all the help they can get. We have an opportunity to tell a very organic story of our city, but it requires that we start thinking about the people we want to support, and the places we want to transform. These are ideas for emergence, concepts to buttress and build our city. We need to start living as a city, not just living inside of it, not just claiming our zip code - claiming our home.
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