Several tables inside the East Boulder Community Center are covered with Legos, Magna Tiles, Wikki Stix and other toys. Forty-eight residents file in, sit down, and are presented with a prompt: create your ideal neighborhood where essentials are less than a 15-minute walk away.
They get to work, piecing their designs together one by one. Brightly colored bricks resemble a farmer’s market stand or a high-rise apartment. Pipe cleaners or plastic stretchy tubes resembled gondola lines or train tunnels. Resident Shane Enzensperger starts to build a daycare.
“I'm imagining something that keeps them safe while also exposing them to what's going on in the neighborhood,” he said. “You know, some kind of space where it's like they can see life happening. They're not disconnected during their day as children.”
But these funky dioramas aren’t just for imagination. The residents are part of the city’s first Community Assembly, which was randomly selected to bring diverse perspectives to the table to talk about 15-minute neighborhoods.
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They’ll inform city planners on their recommendations as Boulder updates its Comprehensive Plan – a document that guides the area’s long-term planning, preservation and development. This is the eighth major update to it.
“The group is using what you would consider kind of junk,” the City of Boulder’s Planning Engagement Strategist, Vivian Castro-Wooldridge, said. “But while they're doing it, they're talking about trade-offs and applying their values that they've agreed on collectively to figure out, like, what does make a good neighborhood?”
The creative process is one that Enzensperger appreciates. He and the other residents went and toured some Boulder neighborhoods that morning for inspiration and talked with city planners about potential solutions. He said he disagreed with a lot of their ideas.
“It just felt like they were trying to prescribe this textbook way of solving the problem onto Boulder,” he said. “I just feel like we're trying to come up with something that's more special, more unique and more nuanced.”
Everyone brought their own priorities to the table – different kinds of housing, natural spaces, community gathering centers. Some had to be explained in a bit more detail, but they all served a purpose.
“This is like a grocery store bin full of, like, green stuff and broccoli, produce,” North Boulder resident Paul Owen said. “I think food access is important. Really close food for everybody.”
“Haha! Love it,” East Boulder resident Vivek Krishnamurthy said.
But each design underwent some stress tests. Are the neighborhoods accommodating to 17 and 70-year-olds? Are they accessible for multiple modes of transportation? Are they equitable? These questions brought up several competing interests.
“We have the plaza, and the daycare, and the library and the basketball court, can't the kids just play there?” Enzensperger asked.
“Yeah, but it's different, having your own lawn, having your own place,” resident Jim Carpenter said back.
Still, it’s these types of inclusive discussions that intrigue residents like Krishnamurthy.
“I'm hearing my neighbors and community members,” he said. “Together, we're talking about things and learning about each other, learning different kinds of perspectives and arriving at better decisions together.”
These kinds of community assemblies have also been proven to better inform participants about issues, increase their trust in government, and create more social cohesion. That’s according to Marjan Ehsassi, one of Boulder’s assembly advisors and the executive director of the Federation for Innovation and Democracy in North America.
Ehsassi hopes that the assembly will help hold the government accountable and give people a space to share their voice.
“People are asked to live by and abide by regulations and laws that don't actually reflect their preferences,” she said. “That needs to change.”
The participants will continue to meet every other week through the end of October.
