The city is where it’s at. Most of the human world lives in cities. Even so, it doesn’t feel like cities are necessarily made for their citizens. From low walkability to hostile architecture to prolonged development, the design isn’t very human. This isn’t even getting into how this impacts the environment and animals. This comes from bureaucracy-laden planning and design, being imparted from the top down. Approaching the creation of spaces for people without those people being involved leads to a focus on capital holders and what they want. If the conversation is between corporations/developers, municipalities, and citizens, citizens are the most important but least considered group in this conversation. That’s why we have shitty cities, rampant with inequity, unsustainability, and destitution.
That all probably sounds pretty bad. Thankfully, the citizen group has the power to come together and make changes with the resources they have available, creating a more liberatory, solarpunk future. This is where tactical urbanism comes in.
Simply put, tactical urbanism is a grassroots-driven urban planning methodology that centers on DIY solutions and interventions. Instead of waiting for the city to act on a project, the community uses available resources to improve their community’s livability. This bottom-up orientation allows for iteration and experimentation to solve traffic issues, low numbers of green spaces, or general safety. These low-cost, DIY approaches can show interest in certain types of developments, encouraging long-lasting positive developments for the community.
Tactical urbanism can manifest as parklets, extending sidewalks and crosswalks, bike lanes, public art installations, seed bombing, outdoor seating, or more. It’s people imagining what they wish their city/community had and just going out and making it happen. These can be quick to implement, and even quicker to remove or modify as needed. This essentially allows for live pilots/prototypes of initiatives, where people can actually use the emergent infrastructure, encouraging longer-term solutions.
Tactical Urbanism x Solarpunk x Liberation
This methodology fits in well with the DIY ethos and grassroots-centric focus of solarpunk and liberatory movements. Solarpunk is all about imagining the futures that we want to see, full of equity, love, and harmony. Liberatory practices are the approaches that can bring the imagined into reality. As you can probably gather, tactical urbanism is a way to take action toward these goals, creating community-driven change. This allows for community resilience to be built and gives people a sense of ownership over the commons, creating a new world in the current one. It’s like a tiny revolution in the hearts and minds of those who participate.
With a tactical urbanism lens, a community could create community gardens or food forests on vacant/underutilized land. This space could allow for building relationships with each other and the land, grow collective self-sufficiencies, and inspire more change in the community. Not to mention the benefits this provides to the local food system.
How to Start Participating in Tactical Urbanism?
Participating in tactical urbanism can be as simple as identifying a problem in your local community and coming up with a creative solution. Here are some steps to get started:
Hopefully, after reading this you’re jazzed about the little changes that lead to big changes you can make in your own community. If you’re looking to start something, here is a very simple overview for you to think about:
Inspiration → Look for an issue that you could solve using tactical urbanism. Some examples could be a lack of sidewalks, poor access to food, or the myriad of other issues your area has. Figure out the one you’re interested in and start doing research. Find out of similar issues have been solved through tactical urbanism and try to understand what community members think and want as possible responses to the issue.
Ideation → Synthesize what you’ve learned into more concrete ideas on how to respond to the issue. Here you’ll ideate with the community and decide what directions to move forward in.
Implementation → Create a full plan for the project, including what will be needed (budget, resources, timelines etc). Get a team together and implement the project. Celebrate.
Postmortem → Track the success of the project as it continues to be out in the real world. Always gather feedback from the community and compile findings into digestible formats, so you can present them to people if necessary.
Tactical urbanism is cool because it gives us a powerful tool for creating more equitable and sustainable cities. By empowering communities to take action and make changes in their own neighborhoods, we can begin to build a better world, one DIY project at a time. While the challenges facing urban areas are significant, tactical urbanism offers a way forward that is accessible, inclusive, and empowering. You can literally start now. Identify an issue in your community, gather some friends, and begin creating the future you want to see. Together, we can build a more livable, equitable, and solarpunk world.
