Empathy Isn’t a Word We Hear in Citymaking, but It Should Be.

“Sense of place – the way we perceive places such as streets, communities, cities or ecoregions – influences our well-being, how we describe and interact with a place, what we value in a place, our respect for ecosystems and other species, how we perceive the affordances of a place, our desire to build more sustainable and just communities, and how... See more

But these activities are all separate from the feelings needed to fully and sustainably participate: the courage, optimism, trust, love, intimacy, curiosity. The resilience to push through the inevitable feelings of fear, overwhelm, frustration, and hurt. The stamina to go through cycles of all of these feelings and more, again and again, and conti... See more

outside of their dwellings, many people are currently inhabiting the smaller pockets of space in and around their neighbourhoods: local parks, even just copses or patches of grass or playgrounds; the street corners (talking at a safe distance) of diverse, scaled-well high streets, that can actually speak to and articulate the local communities they... See more

emblematic ideas to take forward could include: * resilient and diverse communities as essential foundations; * the value of trust in government and civic institutions; * recognising the agility and capability latent within the public sector; * and the enormous value of inefficiency and redundancy in systems; * an understanding that there are essen... See more