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If you are reading this, you may have realized the importance of recovering the city space for people, as well as the problems which are created in urban fabric if otherwise. You might also be here because you think that you are able to improve the town where you live or you may be seeking some legal non-violent tools to regain the city. You are in the right place.
This is is a city reclaim guide for citizens, by citizens. People have a huge power over public configuration although we have delegated it to local authorities which have not always looked after social welfare. What can we do in order to recover the urban space? We provide you with some alternatives which can be employed according to your possibilities and commitment.
Reclaim the city is not a one-person task, it is the work of the citizens who live there.
This guide begins as a joint effort to share tools to reclaim the city, a wide variety of activities and initiatives to choose the ones that fit better to everyone’s circumstances.
Trying to cover the whole guide may be overwhelming. That is why we advise any interested person in recovering the people space to undertake a comprehensive first reading so that they will be able to act in those aspects where they will be able to decide and act in those aspects.
Some readers may choose to lessen the use of their private vehicle but may find themselves unable to organize activities in their neighborhoods and vice versa.
Several people enjoy the public space of a park together.| Alex Blăjan
Urbanism is an eclectic discipline. That means that it involves and affects on several systems. They environment where you live has an effect on any factor that you can imagine: it has an impact on your mental and physical health, it has a direct influence on your employment opportunities, it conditions your mobility or limits your happiness levels, among others.
When a city is people-oriented, the relationship between its inhabitants is better, social polarization is reduced, life quality is enlarged and health is improved, business work better and even taxes are handled better.
It is especially relevant for the children population since a people-oriented city raising the chances of free play, social interaction, active playing (increasing physical activity and cutting down sedentarism), it allows a higher autonomy in they displacements and has a positive impact on their development and their health.
The opposite is also true. When municipalities are not thought at human scale, quality life is weekend and the environment becomes hostile for those who dare to go out. In these municipalities, urbanism and politics have failed in covering this need.
Both noise and atmospheric pollution harms our health, social tension grows, the amount of people being run over rises, employment opportunities are decreased and the amount of public services are lessened. Life becomes less liveable and chances run out. There is no city nor a common project.
False prohibition sign where the pedestrian hides behind the red stripe. | Belinda Fewings
In 2015, the UN highlighted two facts in the campaign ‘Public spaces for all’ during the World Habitat Day:
Public spaces have been abandoned for decades, handed over to private interest with the consequence loss of the common space for the gathering of citizens, encouragement of the cohabitation or city making.