I spent my childhood in the Olympic Village that was built for the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics to house the international press and athletes. When the Olympics was over, the village became available for public residence. As there was no existing community, when a new one moved into the apartments – some rising up to 24 stories – everybody was new and brought with them different values and aspirations for how they wanted to live. In a city where dense urban living is the norm and in a culture where conforming to the majority matters, some of those values were realised, most were not. Ultimately there was little sense of ownership or individualisation of the shared public spaces.
While quite different in scale, Australia’s cities are growing at an unprecedented speed. Our new neighbourhoods are tall, dense, and often character-less and our social connection is declining. We don’t have a holistic policy in place that guides the development of the whole of the neighbourhood with the ultimate aim of promoting our wellbeing. In particular, those who suffer the most from the poverty of opportunity – the homeless, elderly, children, youth, gender/ethnic minorities, people with disability and other economically excluded groups – don’t have equal access to our cities. Our shared spaces are often places of exclusion, designed to serve interests of a dominant class.
Advocating marginalised communities’ right to the city is at the heart of Urban Toolbox and my Westpac Social Change Fellowship journey. I am particularly excited to start the journey with a visit to Seoul/Incheon for the New Cities Summit, a city that triggered my childhood curiosity about people and places. In my rather somber application essay to Yale University 13 years ago, I questioned the social impact of the places, neighborhoods and cities we were creating, citing Seoul as an example of a city losing character and community cohesion. I am looking forward to meeting young and established social entrepreneurs who are reshaping the communities bottom-up.
From June to October 2017 I will be speaking, training, visiting places and meeting thought leaders in Seoul, Singapore, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London, Detroit, New Orleans, Calgary, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, Christchurch, Wellington, Auckland and Melbourne.
I hope to share along the way my learnings on practical approaches to social inclusion and community cohesion through placemaking and urban design.
