New Your City: Kids Can Hack Too !

Check out this very cool project by Secret Door Projects called New Your City. Set up in cooperation with the Fox Point public library and the support of several local art funding groups, New Your City allows kids and grown-ups to envision their city by building a scale model with cardboard, string, glue, and other found materials. Unfortunately the website is down now, but the concept is still very good.
Built in 12 sessions across the month of March, the project combines tangible creation with conscious reflection on what a "city" means. Too bad the construction is over, but it will be on display for a while at the library. It struck me how much more visceral and real this felt, compared to the Providence Tomorrow charrettes run by the Providence DPD and their consultants. Perhaps because the creators were mainly kids, who don't come burdened by agendas, or perhaps because the process didn't march in lock-step to a template of urban planning "success" ?

I hope the artists do it again next year, and maybe we should fund them to do some community planning, rather than the "experts".