Using the Matrix to chart growth

In class last week we came in with the 3×3 matrix filled in with names of six different prison gardens programs and where we believed they fit based on what we know about them. An insight we had while doing this is that none of the locations on this matrix are “better” or “worse” than others. A garden in the bottom left can be just as awesome as a garden in the top left or middle. All of these programs are hugely impactful, they just all have different levels of formalized partnerships. If you know anything about these garden programs that we might be missing, please let us know and we will update the location of the post-its! We placed our New Leaf Garden Project where we would like to eventually be. We think that with the partnerships we’re envisioning and the policy reforms we are considering, we’ll be able to change behaviors and shift attitudes. What really makes our project unique is that policy aspect, which we have not seen in other garden programs.

After we had this, Kristin encouraged us to think about how to use the matrix to chart growth. We thought about where the New Leaf Garden Project currently falls on this matrix. We then added the various stakeholders to the matrix that would help New Leaf move towards the upper right corner, which is where we eventually want the garden to be. Along with each of those additional stakeholders comes certain barriers, which aren’t included in the matrix. (The post-it above “us” says Prison Administrators, and the one next to that says Correctional Officers).

What the matrix provides us with is a plan for which stakeholders are most important for the early success of the garden. For example, we first need to have the prison administrators and correctional officers agree to the project before we can have the inmates be involved. Resource partnerships are more critical in the early stages than other types of partnerships, but those will be crucial in helping the garden grow into a sustainable agent of social, cultural, and economic change.

This matrix can also be used as a tool for tracking our progress as we continue. We can attach timeframes to each of these stakeholders. For example, do we want to have a resource partner on board in 6 months? 1 year? 2 years? This is a topic we’ll be discussing as a group in our next meeting. We will also be detailing the barriers that exist with the various stakeholders, and how we can reduce the “stickiness” of those barriers.

Our Concept Proposal!

Based on our prior research and our most recent rounds of interactions with the Hill District community, we have decided to focus our final deliverable for the course on this concept:

Concept
A location-based tool that helps non-residents understand the Hill District’s rich legacy, and painful past events that shape the neighborhood’s outlook today, by providing an easy reference to historical locations.

Goal
Enable Community members to collect their stories in a way that makes them easier to interact with both for them and for nonresident, in order to enable a richer dialogue between residents and non-residents.

Why location-based?
A lot of memories are tied to physical places, and it’s these physical places that the community has lost in the past, and is afraid of losing now.

When outsiders take away these places, they are taking away the community’s past and their connection to it. And because these things from the past were loved and valued, this throwing away of the past without due respect feels like a rejection of their values, and by extension a rejection of themselves and their worth.

How concept can fit into larger policy and community context

1. The more non-residents understand about Hill District they will base opinions and perceptions on the complexity of the past and present, and less on stereotypes and generalizations about the neighborhood.

2. Better mapping of history and priority can help development groups avoid stepping on toes unnecessarily, and know where they need to do additional community outreach work before moving forward.

3. Better mapping of history and priorities can help the community advocate better for themselves.

4. The more non-residents understand the Hill District, the more they will care about what happens there, and more allies helps soft power of the Hill District community. (Similar to how Mike Schiller argued that by getting people out on the river to kayak they would then have some familiarity with the river that would make them care more about clean rivers.)

5. This approach to preservation of history and legacy could pave the way for applying for historical status for buildings or districts, so that perhaps in the future buildings could be protected from egregious development by being covered by the PGH Historical Review Commission procedures.

Changing Neighborhoods Timely Tidbits

Historic Mapping tool

I came across this cool tool from a link by Public Allies. It lets you explore historic maps of Pittsburgh translated into digital form, something directly of interest to our project:

 

Gentrification in the News

Gentrification and the challenges of revitalizing neighborhoods is often in the news, but of late these articles have been catching my eye.

This longer piece speaks directly to a major issue at play in the Hill District – what happens to the history of a place as the place is changed, and the people begin to change? In this case the history of the place is a sad one – one remembered for a particularly bad street crime incident –

This article on the other hand, discusses a recent study that looks at why some cities are more gentrified than others –

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hill District Group Update

Based on the tour that our group attended, and from speaking with Ms. Baltimore afterwards,the team felt there was still alot more they needed to learn and understand to really be able to contribute internally to the Hill District community, and that it wasn’t going to be possible to fully grasp intricacies and nuisances of the vacant property issue in the time we have left to be able to contribute to the working group on that matter, as we had hoped to do.

While that was a bit disappointing, we did draft a new goal that we hope will still bring some value to the community, but which we will be able to work on from our outsider position.

New goal: Enable Community members to collect their stories in a way that makes them easier to interact with both for them and for nonresident, in order to enable a richer dialogue between residents and non-residents

Next we considered a few different possibilities for what this tool could look like:

Outputs: ways to share info
Idea: Non-resident “Orientation” Kit
Goal: Give non-residents a primer before visiting or working with the HD

Idea: iPhone geo-tagging
Goal: Location-based exploration for non-residents

Idea: Physical scavenger hunt
alt – physical walking tour with sights and stories.

Idea: Having history showcase / events to encourage non-residents to visit

Idea: Calendar of community events and resources
HD History Month – what could you see and do in a month

Idea: Tourism ambassadors (similar to Living Library – rent a person for oral history and understanding, gaining empathy, a UK thing)
Goal: Making the individual people that know the Hill more accessible to non-residents

Idea: Giant Community Bulletin / Chalk Board (maybe multiple checkpoints?)

More ideas:
Mini Museum Feed of volunteer opportunities / projects Documentary / play
Photo composite: then & now Audio Tour

Inputs – ways to contribute materials
Residents choose things to share
Postcard from Residents – what do you want to share with others
Residents make a time-capsule type collection of mementos and thoughts
Audio/photo – Input audio stories – maybe combine with geo-tagging idea?