Our civic spaces
My walk to work this morning took me past not one, but two polling places. They were about a block and a half apart, and both had lines out the door.
One was in the gymnasium of an elementary school, the other in the lobby of my local public library.
Walking by, I was struck by how both of these public institutions only seem to be used as truly public spaces when election days roll around.
There certainly are some libraries that see themselves as spaces for public discourse. In my home state of Wisconsin, Russ Feingold often holds his listening sessions in public libraries. In the lead up to the 2004 election, I had the opportunity to coordinate some "book clubs" in Wisconsin libraries that brought citizens together to talk about political conduct, and the book A New Political Covenant. The conversations that came out of those spaces was fascinating, but one of the most common refrains was how much people craved opportunities to have those kinds of discussions in a safe space.
Schools are even more closed off than libraries. Certainly, high school athletics can serve as a social center of a community, but to truly be a public space there needs to be more than just entertainment and a sense of identiy at stake. Too often, we view schools as an issue rather than a physical structure that can be a force in a community. Meeting spaces and gathering spaces are at a premium as we move toward a more isolated and insular society, and schools are an abundant source of such spaces.
Of course, taking adavantage of these spaces call for some imagination, so I turn to you. How do you think these, and other potential public spaces, can be used beyond election day to improve the civic health of your community?
One was in the gymnasium of an elementary school, the other in the lobby of my local public library.
Walking by, I was struck by how both of these public institutions only seem to be used as truly public spaces when election days roll around.
There certainly are some libraries that see themselves as spaces for public discourse. In my home state of Wisconsin, Russ Feingold often holds his listening sessions in public libraries. In the lead up to the 2004 election, I had the opportunity to coordinate some "book clubs" in Wisconsin libraries that brought citizens together to talk about political conduct, and the book A New Political Covenant. The conversations that came out of those spaces was fascinating, but one of the most common refrains was how much people craved opportunities to have those kinds of discussions in a safe space.
Schools are even more closed off than libraries. Certainly, high school athletics can serve as a social center of a community, but to truly be a public space there needs to be more than just entertainment and a sense of identiy at stake. Too often, we view schools as an issue rather than a physical structure that can be a force in a community. Meeting spaces and gathering spaces are at a premium as we move toward a more isolated and insular society, and schools are an abundant source of such spaces.
Of course, taking adavantage of these spaces call for some imagination, so I turn to you. How do you think these, and other potential public spaces, can be used beyond election day to improve the civic health of your community?
posted by Patrick at 10:23 PM
2 Comments:
Ok, I'll bite.
How do you reconcile using the school as a public space with the insidious fear that Someone Is Trying To Do Something Bad To Our Children?
I loved Voting Day when I was in elementary school because they would always have a bake sale out in front of the auditorium. Not only was there a chance of seeing Mom in the middle of the school day, but she also sent us with an extra quarter in the milk money so we could buy a cupcake.
Shortly after I started going to the middle school, we started getting Voting Day off from school entirely. It was too much of a security risk to allow all those strangers into the building while all the children were there.
So how do you convince all the concerned PTA parents that if you open up the school to the community as a meeting place, that their kids won't come in on Monday to find pornography stashed in the library and LSD in the paste?
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