This project is a modest attempt to shine a light on the many wonderful community assets – or civic goods – that public and private institutions and groups of committed individuals are creating, and building every day.
They might be parks, playgrounds, community organisations, public or private libraries, art galleries, health clinics, fitness groups, or free events put on in otherwise commercial ventures.
In an economic, political, and societal moment that can sometimes feel like it is trending negatively, these assets have never been more critical – both in the role they play today, and the expanded role they could play with more adoption and support. They are also in some cases struggling.
The idea at the heart of this effort is that increasing their visibility will lead to increased adoption and usage, and increased usage will lead to increased participation and increased participation will lead to more impact from a greater number of initiatives and assets. Any of these assumptions may of course be wrong, but if any are right it will hopefully have served a purpose.
Feedback or ideas? Get in touch at ourcivicgoods@gmail.com.
What
Currently:
- This website, hosting information about civic goods including curated listings
- Two custom Goole Maps – one optimised for desktop, one for mobile – with many of the civic goods listed on the site geo-located
- A blog curating and summarising upcoming events in and around the civic goods listed on the sites
- The ambition of the project is over time to cover civic goods across the UK, but for reasons of practical necessity it is starting off in London
Other ideas for extending Civic Goods in future include:
- Timely summaries of upcoming events
- Interviews with people behind civic goods
- How to guides to get the most out of civic goods
- A social media channel sharing video stories about civic goods
Suggestions? Get in touch at ourcivicgoods@gmail.com
Goals
- Help people find the civic goods we have access to
- Increase adoption of those civic goods through that awareness
- Celebrate the people building and maintaining civic goods
- Highlight opportunities to participate in creating, developing, or maintaining civic goods
Principles
- Be broad and inclusive
- Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good*
- No political affiliation
- Focus on free**
*an example – the increasing prevalence of privately owned public spaces (sometimes called POPs) is seen by many as problematic, and that is something that merits debate and challenge in the appropriate forums. However, if there is a public space in private ownership that is in fact being used by people for free in a way that is beneficial to the people using it, it would be included here on the basis of that impact vs a theoretical principle that POPs = always bad.
**there will be occasional inclusion of subsidised and / or low cost things but the priority will be civic goods that are free at the point of access.