WalkTalks

An engagement tool focused on creating

community connections

Ryan Martinson, Sustainable CalgaryJune 25, 2014

Community of Practice

WALKTALK FOUNDATION

Attachment to Place

WalkabilityInformal

Urbanism

ATTACHMENT TO PLACE

Attachment to Place

WalkabilityInformal

Urbanism

Community Attachment• The top three drivers of community

attachment

– Social Offerings - Places for people to meet

each other and the feeling that people in

the community care about each other

– Openness - How welcoming the community

is to different types of people, including

families with young children, minorities, and

talented college graduates

– Aesthetics - The physical beauty of he

community including the availability of

parks and green spaces

WALKABILITY

Attachment to Place

WalkabilityInformal

Urbanism

WALKING DOESN’T HAPPEN ANYMORE, SO WHY BOTHER… OR DOES IT?

VEHICLE SPEED

Link Place

• Street as a facility for the movement of people

• Save time

• Street as a destination in its own right

• Spend time

INFORMAL URBANISM / TACTICAL URBANISM

Attachment to Place

WalkabilityInformal

Urbanism

HOW THE EVENT GOES

First SessionWhat is Martindale?

• Sets the identity of the community

What is a walkable community?

• Sets the goal

What walking trips to you do?

• Sets the Reality

What is stopping you from going more?

• Sets the Barriers

What is good about your current walking trips?

• Builds on the positives

What can we do to break down the barriers?

• Sets the solutions

Samosas

Brainstorming

• Rules:

– only positive opportunities

– build on what is good already

– build on networks in area

– group list making on a whiteboard

– no bad ideas

What Martindale thought of:

RESULTS

Some A-ha ideas…

• Hena in the park

• Dogs for dogs

• Paint electrical boxes

‘Build the social fabric and transform the

isolation within our communities into

connectedness and caring for the whole’

Community –The structure of belonging by Peter Block

A blend of questions and new ideas

• The traditional conversations that seek to explain,

study, analyze, define tools, and express the desire to

change others are interesting but not powerful.

• Questions open the door to the future and are more

powerful than answers in that they demand

engagement. Engagement in the right questions is

what creates accountability.

Community –The structure of belonging by Peter Block

Why it might work• ‘Shift our conversations from the problems of

community to the possibility of community.’

• The essence of creating an alternative future

comes form citizen-to-citizen engagement

that constantly focuses on the well-being of

the whole.

Community –The structure of belonging by Peter Block

Leadership• Leadership is convening and held to three

tasks:

– Shift the context within which people gather.

– Name the debate through powerful questions.

– Listen rather than advocate, defend, or provide

answers.

Community –The structure of belonging by Peter Block