Reclaiming Your Place at the Table

From ‘Placeholder to Placemaker’ in Four Steps

“A potluck’s success is a reflection of the love invested by each contributor, and all you need is an anchor dish and a table.” ~ Kent Dahlgren, Thanksgiving in July

“The more participatory are processes of forming, changing and caring for places, the stronger will these be. Above all, and directly resulting from these, they must be places of beauty. Places so made imbue matter with spirit meaning. This alone can justify the environmental costs which all building, even the most eco-friendly, carries. Striving to do things this way moves beyond mere sustainability concerns — they become too integrated to separate out — to sustenance. Actions dedicated to human healing have influence on wider issues — healing our environment as well as ourselves.” ~ Christopher Day, Places of the Soul: Architecture and Environmental Design as a Healing Art

I wrote an article last month introducing the purpose behind the Anti-Fragile Neighborhood Wealth Production prototype we’re developing in East Austin.

By disconnecting the ‘neighbor’ from the ‘hood’, the people living in those areas became occupants, depersonalized, objectified and without agency or the dignity that all humans deserve.

This has led to a generational story of lack of worth that tears the fabric of community that had been woven over time by many hands with the shared purpose of creating a place that matters. Won’t You Be a Neighbor: Putting the Neighbor Back in the ‘Hood

Step 1: Identify, Emerge & Activate residents to co-create the Anti-Fragile Community Wealth engine

Step 2: Use the Anti-Fragile Playbook to guide the story. It is something like a cookbook for neighborhood self-governance, accelerating adoption by recognizing forms of non-monetary capital that are ordinarily overlooked, such as wisdom, trust, and gift economies.