The Power of Ten

The Project for Public Spaces uses the idea of "the power of ten" in working with communities to help them think about their community's strengths and how to build on them.   Great public spaces are great because there are multiple (say, ten) things you can do there -- you can sit on a bench and watch people, you can get something to eat, you can look at a great piece of public art, you can listen to music, and so on.  Great neighborhoods are great because they have multiple (again, let's say, ten) places within them that are great.  Great cities have multiple great neighborhoods within them.  And so on and so on.  (It's a little reminiscent in more than just title of the famous film Powers of Ten, by Charles and Ray Eames.)

I have been thinking about my neighborhood, and what are our ten great places.  (Since it's a great neighborhood, there must be, say, ten.)  So here's my list.  The order, if it conveys anything, is probably more about proximity rather than importance or priority.

1.  Morningside Presbyterian Church.  Morningside Presbyterian provides wonderful expanse of green lawn, a parking lot where neighborhood children learn to ride bikes and where we have our block parties, picnic tables for a National Night Out event, a wonderful and safe hill for sledding when it snows, and a trail through the green space between Wessyngton and North Morningside.  Several of the 5K races in the neighborhood end at Morningside Presybterian, with the finish line in the driveway from North Morningside and after-race activities in the parking lots. There's a pre-school that is attended by neighborhood children, and a festival fundraiser (now moved to fall) that's a fun event for the neighborhood.  There's an Easter egg hunt.  And there of course is the church itself, which draws its members from the neighborhood and beyond.  They support the larger community with a variety of good works.  Sometimes they host classical music concerts and our neighborhood association meets there.  If I had to identify a place that was the heart of our street, I would say Morningside Presbyterian.

2.  Sidney Marcus Park.  Sidney Marcus Park was created from land that was acquired for the I-485 expressway that the Georgia Department of Transportation planned on building through our neighborhood.  The park is named after Senator Sidney Marcus, who helped stop that from happening.  Now there's a playground and picnic tables and (for an urban park) a fair amount of space for frisbee-throwing and tag and hide and seek.  It's a frequent site for birthday parties (and not just for little kids -- Sarah planned a surprise 16th birthday party there for Caroline.)  The MLPA hosts concerts in the park that are pleasant but attendance is largely limited to parents of pre-school children, something that I'd like to see change.

3.  Haygood Memorial United Methodist Church.  Like Morningside Presbyterian, Haygood is deeply integrated into the neighborhood and touches the lives of many people who do not attend church there.  There's a pre-school and a daycare center and an after-school program there.   That's where we buy our pumpkins in October and our Christmas trees in December; where we park when we go to vote or visit our child's classroom at Morningside Elementary; where the kids play basketball or where their Scout troop meets.   It's also a great church and it also supports a wide variety of community outreach programs.

4.  Morningside Elementary School.  Morningside Elementary is one of the defining institutions of our neighborhood.  It's a good elementary school, but what's extraordinary are the fiercely committed parents who run the Halloween carnival (a fundraiser for the PTA), the book fair, the garden, Family Science Night, the chess club, and so forth.  Most parents of young children get pulled into the parent groups through their child's pre-school or daycare or through friendships made at playgrounds, but if you haven't yet, you will be once your child starts at Morningside.

5.  Alon's Bakery & Market.  Alon's is a place to walk on a weekend morning for coffee and pastry, or to pick up a sandwich for lunch.  You can met a friend there and sit outside.  It's not the food so much that makes it a great place, on my list, although the food is very good - it's that it is a place to go where you can have a cup of coffee with a friend or chat with people that you know while you are waiting in line to pay for your croissants.  There are tables outside and benches where you can sit.  Even though the outdoor view is mostly of a parking lot, it's still a social part of the community.  Maybe someday they will take out some of the parking places and plant some trees and put benches in the shade.

6.  The Morningside Farmers' Market.  Almost every Saturday morning there's a farmer's market in the small parking lot across from Alon's.  What's available varies by season, but it's a way to support local farmers, buy wonderful food, and chat with the neighbors while you wait in line to check out the tomatoes.  Sometimes there's music, and you can walk there from our street.

7.  San Francisco Coffee Company.  Coffee, a pleasant ambiance, local art on the walls, and wifi.  Need I say more?  It's a great place to meet a friend, study for an exam, or get that Boy Scout rechartering package submitted on line.  And you can walk there.

8.  North Highland Avenue & Virginia Avenue.  There is not quite enough at the commercial area near our street (where Alon's is, and Caramba used to be) to be a destination, but just south of us where North Highland intersects Virginia Avenue there is a critical mass of restaurants, bars, shops, and public space to make it a great place.  Almost any time of day or night there are people on the sidewalks.  Coffee at Aurora in the morning, lunch Yeah Burger, dinner at George's, music on the corner.   There's also the Virginia Highland Civic Association's Summerfest festival in early June and events year round in nearby John Howell Park (also created from land acquired for the Interstate That Wasn't Built).

This, as you may note, is only eight great places and not ten.  I thought about the Morningside Nature Preserve, and Herbert Taylor Park, and the new park off Zonolite, and the South Fork of Peachtree Creek, but they all seemed too far away and not really an integral part of the social fabric of the neighborhood.  I probably would have included Caramba Café if they hadn't moved to Decatur Street.  Of course, the Project for Public Spaces folks are clear that ten is an arbitrary number; there could be eight or eleven great places in a great neighborhood just as easily as ten.  But ten's a good number.  So what have I left off?

What a list of places -- physical places -- does not capture is the neighborhood connectivity that is not linked to places.  There are active and effective neighborhood associations in both Morningside-Lenox Park and Virginia-Highland.  There's an email list in Virginia Highland that provides real-time information on lost dogs, cats in trees, yard sales, suspicious persons, BOLOs ("be on the lookout" notices) from the Atlanta Police Department, and the occasional near-real-time report of serious crime.   The result of these active and effective social networks is what Harvard University processor Robert Sampson  has called "collective efficacy" - the degree to which people trust each other enough to work together and shared expectations for action.  Sampson believes that many of the differences between neighborhoods have differences in collective efficacy as a root cause.

Which gets us back to the list of great places.  Great places support communities to develop an engaged and effective neighborhood, and engaged and effective neighborhoods can and do develop and support the great places in their neighborhood.  Wherever you live, think about your neighborhood's great places, and be part of your neighborhood's community life -- it really does matter.  

But I have to get off the computer now.  Here in Morningside, today is the Third Annual Morningside Mile Race and Block Party, which was started by Rick Chey (owner of Doc Chey's) to benefit Fire Station No. 19.   Iain will be running; I'm just going to the party.