Conscious Culture

Portland's City Repair Project

The City Repair Project is group of citizen activists creating public gathering places and helping others to creatively transform the places where they live.

With a mostly volunteer staff and the help of hundreds of volunteer citizen activists, our many projects:

• educate people about why most American neighborhoods are socially isolating and culturally inactive, and how we can transform them from the grassroots,
• inspire people to both understand themselves as part of a larger community and fulfill their own creative potential, and
• activate people to be part of the communities around them, as well as part of the decision-making that shapes the future of their communities.

City Repair was formed in Portland, Oregon in 1996 by citizen activists who wanted a more community-oriented and ecologically sustainable society. Born out of a successful grassroots neighborhood initiative that converted a residential street intersection into a neighborhood public square, City Repair began its work with the idea that localization (of culture, of economy, of decision-making) is a necessary foundation of sustainability. By reclaiming urban spaces to create community-oriented places, we plant the seeds for greater neighborhood communication, empower our communities and nurture our local culture.

Ongoing Projects

 

Intersection Repair

What defines your neighborhood? Do you know the people who live in it with you?

Intersection Repair helps neighbors convert street intersections into public gathering places – the most essential part of your neighborhood for community building. ...more

Village Building Convergence

**Go to VBC's webpage**

The VBC is a convergence of citizens, natural builders and activists to help neighborhoods design and build their own community amenities. Working together, we can turn our neighborhoods into Villages - one workparty at a time!

City Riparian: The Village Planting Convergence

**More Information**

City Riparian engages neighbors in a collective process to design and install forest gardens and other permaculturally-informed landscapes in the commons. In doing so, they will incubate both social and natural capital, furthering their connection to each other and their place.

Earth Day Celebration of Localization

This celebration of local culture, local business and local initiative year’s attracts over 4,000 participants annually - and it’s all organized by community volunteers!

Join in the morning of neighborhood service projects and then come to the Celebration for live bands, alternative vehicles, green vendors, activists, workshops, and the T-Palas.
Click here for the EARTH DAY 2006 main page

Placemaking Facilitation

From the Albina Triangle Project in North Portland to the Bay City (Oregon) Vision Plan community design initiative, our Placemaking Facilitation projects aim to empower citizens to creatively transform the places where they live. ...more

T-Horse

The T-Horse is a mobile tea house, public square and potluck activator that reminds us what we’re missing without local public gathering places, and demonstrates how a space can be transformed into a place. Always free hot tea and homemade chai! ...more

Community Potluck Gatherings

City Repair facilitates big community potlucks throughout the city, open to all. It’s a way for us to socially connect with old and new friends – and to share some great food and desserts! Visit our News Page for the next day and location. The Word

Organize your own Community Potluck
The Community Dinner Project : Community Dinner

visionPDX

• visionPDX - 30 year vision project for Portland: visionPDX

This year City Repair is teaming up with the City of Portland to engage Portlanders in creative dialogue about the future of our city through visionPDX.

You can be part of the summer action! Join a Roving Skit Survey Team to amuse and engage City Repair participants at various projects (such as the Village Building Convergence and the T-Horse at different parks all over Portland) in voicing their visions.

 

City skylines around the world

I ran across this posting today on City Noise. It's a stellar viewscape of the incredible urban development we've been busy building around the world. Some would look upon this as the pinnacle of man-made beauty, and others with sighs of disgust at the environmental impact and toxic by-products of the lifestyle.
Either way, one is taken by the intensity of the human endeavour. I, for one, see the foundations for a bright, sustainable future. Hard earned and evolved from the ashes of once-wasteful ways, we can re-birth ourselves into a culture of peace and sustainability.

No one knows for certain where this living urban creature will go next, but one thing is for sure: We each hold a piece of the puzzle in our hands every day... Our thoughts, our habits, our purchases, our lifestyle: Each of us make our reality. Are you aware where you fit in the puzzle?