Friday, April 11, 2008

Dear Christiania- An invitiation to you

A quick invite

Public Pen-Pal Project (PP-PP)

Toronto and København (Copenhagen) are about half-a-world away from each other, but the two cities do have some things in common.

For example condos are popping up all over both cities and their governments are spending lot of time reminding everyone what "world-class" cities they are.

Another similarity is that there are amazing communities in these cities that are being gentrified to make way for this world class development.

City governments and developers are also spending a lot of time explaining to people in these communities what exactly is wrong with them and their homes, and why they need to be revitalized or normalized. What they are not doing is spending anytime listening to the people in these communities and finding out what are the good things about their homes or finding out why people don't want to leave.

PP-PP will connect people in very different communities, public housing residents in Toronto, and residents of Christiana in København; getting them to tell stories about the everyday assets of their homes, asking questions about each other, and possibly discovering surprising similarities.

Thanks to the Christiania Researcher in Residence (CRIR) programme for their support of this project.