Exploring resident-empowered meetingplaces in Dutch neighbourhoods

Abstract

The ‘Jane Jacobs Walk’ organization as one of the Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) heritage initiative supported three Jane Jacobs Walks of certified Fred Sanders in the period 2011 - 2014 in Amsterdam neighbourhoods. These walks helped residents to explore resident-empowered meeting-places and activities in their own housing environment for the benefit of community living-quality for themselves and others all spirited by Jane Jacobs her thoughts. These walks can methodological be seen as a form actionresearch by which the participating residents analyze their own data of experiences and insights. From the three Jane Jacob Walks organized (added to the results of my dissertation as the ‘body of knowledge’) (Sanders, 2014) the conclusions are: 1. Residents favor nearby and lifestyle coupled meeting-places, 2. Beside the by the municipality organized meeting-places there are many so called ‘free’ meeting-places
available, 3. Less of all these meeting-places suite youngsters, foreign people and unemployed people, and 4. Residents are willing to organize meeting-place even to manage subsidizing still a financial support from the municipality is essential. The effect of the ‘talking by walking’ could be optimized by involving
more youngsters. ‘Jane Jacobs Walks’ as example of action-research could methodological be optimized by testing the results in a pilot-neighbourhood.