This is part 1 of an upcoming Local Regen Guide. 🌱
Does your community have a public space?
A public space is the perfect way to 'regenerate in the open.' In full view of the communities we cherish. Nothing speaks to a community more than shared responsibility and accessibility.
Over the last few years, we planned, designed and opened a space for the public. (Located within Village Square Mall in Calgary, Alberta.)
In most communities, there's a place that anyone can go to. Although, we don't typically view our public areas as hot spots or places we want to be at any time. Can that be changed?
What resources can we use to create better public spaces?
Some ideas:
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Devices: cheaper every year, and many can get repurposed
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Digital Interactive Textbooks (DITs): updateable, crowdsourced & opensource— empowered with tech like the EVM & AI
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Open-sourced materials & tools
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P2P systems: best for direct-to-community approaches
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Wireless networks
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Mentorships, Tutoring & Coaching
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Career Advancement Opportunities
If we create places where people from all walks of life congregate, interact, share ideas, and collaborate, then the power of socialization will spark new ideas within our neighbourhoods.
Locally, we can make the largest impact. Direct to the community is not very different than loving thy neighbour.
My Neighbourhood Has a Community Center: Why Do We Need Better Public Spaces?
Often enough, we only consider the value of a public area once its sanctity gets contested. After a contentious suggestion like rezoning nature preserves or after a real estate developer converts an open space to a high-rise apartment building without considering the perspectives of the residents of a community.
We mindlessly give up our rights all too often because of our fast-paced daily lives, the hustle and bustle. The constant grind is an exceptionally dense blindfold.
Have you had to stand in the queue at a government office? Another good example of the rigidity we find ourselves in. How can this be so consistent across the world?
Certainly, we can't all put the same effort into organizing ourselves. Or do we? Is it that obvious?
Is it a mass coincidence that we increasingly find ourselves stuck further as a global unit into debts and degenerative practices? It's as if we wish or hope for a sustainable and regenerative force to fly in and sweep up the mess before us.
The bystander effect is not limited to people and crimes but people and inaction— the thought that another person will handle this: leading to the unpleasant result of nothing.
How do we define a public space?
We must tread this line of thinking more; there are important questions to consider when evaluating your community's options and what is available for the general public.
These are some good questions to ask yourself:
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How often do you help areas in your community that are for the public?
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Do you take advantage of the public spaces in your area?
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Do you help maintain the local park?
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How often do you visit the community center?
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Have you ever rented out a public space for an event?
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Have you recently seen your local library?
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Have you noticed if the staff encourages growth & introduces new topics?
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Are the patrons engaged in these spaces?
If you answer negatively to more than half of these questions, consider championing a new public space for your community.
A decentralized agora is a town hall— more or less. Different areas will require distinct approaches and unique models: ways to adapt instead of encroach.
Investing in our communities through community-run town halls can provide a valuable space for people to connect. It will take some sacrifice and earnest work: but it is attainable.
If you can keep coming up with more 'negatives' or 'bads,' then it may be time to explore championing a valuable public space for your community: especially if you can conceptualize how to do it better.
We set out to establish a 'public space' not owned and supported by a political group: strictly, it's for the community, and the community keeps it alive. A public space is often associated with parks, libraries, and squares. But we can view this differently.
Public Goods are expensive when the cost doesn't get properly distributed. Having bootstrapped and self-funded a public space for the last three years, I can attest to the expense.
How can individuals distribute the cost of creating public spaces?
Some typical expenses:
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Leases: depends on location, negotiation skills and the overall market
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Utilities: electricity, gas, wifi etc.
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Office Furnishings: we took advantage of used office furniture; you can likely do the same! Search for commercial office movers, thrift stores or companies that resell office furniture.
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Fees: Insurance, permits and business licencing (good chance you'll need to form a corporation of some type)
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Salaries: If you can't get volunteers or if insurance doesn't permit, you may need to account for people to staff the space.
Some ways to distribute the cost:
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Grants, donations, fundraising & crowdsourcing with set goals
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Blockchains: The EVM is incredibly promising for the transparent funding and maintenance of public goods
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Quadratic Funding
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Retroactive Public Goods Funding (RPGF)
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Collective Memberships: With member fees similar to a COOP
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Sponsorships & Partnerships: Alignment/brand collaboration to strengthen both public goods and the orgs that build public-facing goods/services
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Fractionalized Responsibility: Distributing costs equally across a set of addresses via NFTs like Hypercerts — cost share is split at the sale and paid in full or with funds that stream on a set basis
How do we ensure that contributions are creating an impact?
One way is that the legal system works in our favour; some issues may exist, but distributed ownership and responsibility blend real-life credit/reputation and on-chain history.
Real world public good agreements aka RWPGA
A fixed lease is a legal contract and must get paid. It would be best to replicate the agreement or strictly put the contract on chain with the same terms minus identifiable details. (Depending on confidentiality)
With contracts, whether on-chain or not, there is no arguing that the terms outlined in a contract facilitates a base layer of honesty for both parties to commit to. A contract also creates a due process, allowing people to navigate and understand the conditions they must maintain, making it easier if anything bad happens, and enforcing accountability.
And notoriously, this is abused because businesses need a mailing address. Fake companies have been the main argument for popular short-sellers of large companies for decades. After realizing there is only a little to prevent a company from faking productivity values. And when people rarely visit factories they invest in, it's way easier to get away with fraud.
However, with a transparent money chain, it becomes much easier to audit the trail— especially if the company is fraudulent or the space doesn't exist.
With our ability to meet people or reach out virtually, we can also conduct pop-in visits, where someone locally attests that they went to the public space and signs a transaction with their wallet, posts a photo on social media or some other verifiable method.
Anything is possible if we cooperate in funding real-world public goods that interface directly with our local communities while holding each other accountable with verifiable proofs.
A Public Goods Cooperative: The Regen Republic
The concept of a PGC evolves with modern tech, encompassing areas designed to inspire collaboration and facilitate the exchange of ideas and knowledge. And, importantly, it doesn't need to be shouldered by individuals; we can distribute that cost.
What it looks like when a cooperative funds public spaces in the real world:
We get a brilliant way to sustain public goods while also providing a way to hold organizations or persons accountable. The best part is that we can look deeper into the financials of organizations— institutions meant to support and maintain the development of public goods are often unclear in how they use their resources. This current opaque nature of public institutions must change if we want public goods instead of public bads.
At any time, anyone can help make the budget more efficient, account for expenses or suggest new ways to use capital! Anytime the cooperative can save funds, it gets put back toward public goods, reinforcing them and adding resilience and, in turn, sustainability.
Humans are unique in that we can sense when things are not sustainable, but it's not easy to determine why or how to avoid the consequences of inaction or overreaction.
People are not upset about paying an environmental deposit for bags; they are mad that they keep purchasing reusable bags and forgetting them.
We realize as a collective that changing bags didn't help; it's unsustainable still. We didn't approach the learned behaviour with an attempt to change it; we went for a fast solution with the most obvious results.
It would be a shame if we forgot about the importance of public spaces and then desperately need them.
A modern public space entails more than a place to study, relax, or read.
With the abundance of resources available today, we can create highly advanced areas packed with information and tools for the public.
In ancient Greece, the Agoras were central public hubs where people gathered, built in the open and shared ideas.
Today, we can support decentralized Agoras that serve as real-life hubs for innovation and growth, fostering an ecosystem that promotes learning, collaboration, transparency and cooperation.
After thousands of years, it's obvious that we as humans align the most with a belief system, and the stronger the belief system, the more powerful the community.
We can incentivize positive behaviour and encourage optimistic belief systems for the world's benefit instead of harm— establishing sustainable loops instead of degenerative leaks.