Welcome to Participatory Seattle!

This site is a placeholder for the idea of bringing Participatory City to Seattle.  I set up this website as a place to collect folks who are interested in the idea and focus any energy that could bring it to fruition. There is no organization, funding, or movement for Participatory Seattle…yet. 

Are you excited or curious to learn more or have some ideas how about the make this happen? I would love to chat. Please fill out the contact form below and we will connect.

Want to learn more about Participatory City? Read on!

What is Participatory City?

Participatory City is an English-based model for building and cultivating place-based communities through bottom-up empowerment. The folks at Participatory City have done the homework to identify the barriers that keep people from starting or participating in community-led initiatives, and then created a support system to help grow a “participatory ecosystem” of low-threshold/low-committment opportunities civic engagement.

On the ground, Participatory City’s support system takes the form of a staffed and financially supported neighborhood community center. It serves as a sort of incubation space – anyone who shows up with a community idea can work with a staff member to refine their ideas, get a prototype off the ground, or meet other people already doing similar work.

If you would like to learn more, Participatory City has a lot of great resources on its website. I would especially recommend the Illustrated Guide to Participatory City

What are its results? 

Participatory City has partnered its work with top-notch data-driven research. Their data shows incredible successes: increased community health, reduced inequality, combatted gentrification, decreased isolation, and more. 

Participatory City has demonstrated that our economic, public, and political health is intrinsically linked to our place-based connections to each other. 

How could this happen in Seattle? 

Participatory City could take on several different forms. It could be driven by a city agency, like the Department of Neighborhoods, or be driven by philanthropic investment, say through the Seatle Foundation.

Perhaps, as a first step, we can get a group of civic leaders to travel to England to see this first hand? Who wants to join me?

Who are you?

I am a  landscape architect and community organizer with a passion for building place-based communities and a lot of experience running community placemaking projects. But I don’t have very much experience growing and starting a multi-faceted initiative like Participatory City. 

So I am looking for help. I need smart people and funding to get this going.

Participatory City is one of the most exciting and innovative initiatives I have seen, and I believe it holds much promise in reversing our nation’s increasing polarization, tribalism, loneliness, and disconnection. Creating connection and belonging in the places where we live is part of the solution. The neighborhood is the unit of change. Participatory City has zeroed in on what it takes.

I know that big ideas often get started with something as small as conversation, or a placeholder website. So here we are.

 Interested? Let’s talk.

Let’s Connect