speaker-0: We are the roots, we are the right, hearts on fire, truth in our eyes. From these blocks we build the towers, people, passions.

speaker-1: This is Places People Change, a podcast that explores what happens when neighborhoods stop being the target of change and start being the source of it. From these lines we build a towers, people passion. Welcome to Season One, where we explore belonging as the foundation for equitable neighborhood change. This season we will talk to researchers and thought leaders who are shaping the field of place-based development and to the practitioners on the ground making it possible. I am Sean Duncan, the founder of Congruence Consulting, and your host for Places People Change. In over 15 years of walking alongside neighborhood leaders, one challenge has been universal generating and sustaining resident participation in ways that are authentic, energizing, and effective. I have seen so many different attempts to incentivize participation, motivate involvement, and reward engagement. And most of these have been met with immediate energy followed by declining participation. To be clear, it is seldom the case that That a lack of involvement is evidence that people don't care. It has more to do with the demands of life and limited emotional capacity, or even just the time left over to stay civically engaged. And that is what makes today's guest such an exciting, refreshing, and necessary leader to learn from. Katie Yellow is the vice president of placemaking for the city of Jacksonville. After meeting Katie and having her take me on a tour of the neighborhood she's working in, learning more about her story and leadership, I can't wait to share this conversation with you. As we learned in the last episode, placemaking is this amazing work of activating public spaces that create belonging and a sense of place. And what we'll learn from Katie is that placemaking is not about the finished product. It's not about the park, the mural, or the crosswalk. Placemaking is about the process and the people. Activating places only matters if it is the result of a process of activating the hope, the agency, and the gifts of the people. Katie has been activating people for public spaces since 2010, working at the intersection of government, community, and the arts to build people-centered cities. From her start as Bingham New York's youngest commissioner for downtown development, to launching Flint, Michigan's nationally recognized pop-up civics model, which is now being replicated in other cities, she has spent her career turning public space into civic engagement. She's a national endowment for the arts creative placemaking grantee, producer of the Global Placemaking Week series. and currently serves as a vice president of placemaking for Jacksonville's Business Improvement District. Listen in to our conversation about how we can activate people for place-based change. Katie, thank you so much for joining this conversation. I am so looking forward to diving into to your story, your work, and all the good things that are going on.

speaker-0: Good morning Sean. Thanks so much for having me. I'm very excited to just explain everything and open up the

speaker-1: Do you have your ⁓ official like decaf Americano to get your day started? Like what what's going with you this morning?

speaker-0: ⁓ even one layer below is a Keurig decap from Dunkin' Donuts. I cannot it's worse than gas station coffee, but at this point it's got no coffee.

speaker-1: Well, this morning, actually, I mean it's it I feel like it pairs well. I've I have a a coffee from your city of Jacksonville, cold bean. I I could not leave your city without without ⁓ an artifact of some sort. So I have some ⁓ Rwandan coffee this morning from Jacksonville. So I'll I I have a I feel like I have a part of your city with me while we're having this conversation.

speaker-0: That's perfect. That was actually the first recommended coffee shop to me from the person who introduced me to Jacksonville.

speaker-1: ⁓ nice. Nice. Yeah. Well, thank you, yeah, for being a part of this conversation. Obviously, this podcast is really about the way that people are coming together to shape their places. But I actually want to start with kind of asking the question to you on a place that has shaped you and and ⁓ kind of been a part of setting your life trajectory.

speaker-0: Good morning. Yeah, I really appreciate that question. And I've been so fortunate to ⁓ be have so many places be a part of me and me be interacting with its social fabric. ⁓ I did part of my graduate studies in Western Ireland and that was a really significant multi-year experience. ⁓ but I can't help but ⁓ when I was ruminating on this question, thinking about home ⁓ and what home means as someone who has struggled with that word and ⁓ struggled with other people through that word and had really incredible conversations around the feeling or the place that is home. Typically we think of where we're born or where the heart is. So I think for this question I'm gonna focus on Binghamton, New York. It's a small city in upstate, post-industrial rust belt ⁓ town, if you will. ⁓ when I was growing up there, there's probably 40,000, 45,000 people in the city. ⁓ and the statistic I wanted is to stop sharing, but it it shaped s so much of that place in my childhood was at the time it was about forty just shy of fifty percent, ⁓ at or below the poverty line, which at that time was fifteen grand a year. and that has changed a lot. So it was ⁓ blue collar, ⁓ it's called the parlor city. At one point there are more bars than people, that's what the Lord says. ⁓ It's known iconically for its hot air balloon and the speedy, which is like a chicken kebab. and it shaped me simply because that's where I I was born, raised, and educated. ⁓ those streets are the reason I'm interested in public space. Those were the first ⁓ parks and riverfront plazas that I activated. And what's really humbling about growing up in a small town is if you're ambitious or you have a big spirit. There's lots of room to grow and play and try things out. Where I think about growing up in New York, I might have been ⁓ maybe not as fortunate because I could have been ⁓ overwhelmed or ⁓ intimidated, if you will. So Binghamton, New York shaped me because it was my first stages, ⁓ poetically and literally speaking, where we started putting musicians ⁓ and guitarists and muralists out in public space and I I just start to see how incredibly transformative it was. ⁓ it's also the place where the term placemaking came up in my life. I was an undergrad taking a graduate level civic entrepreneurship class. ⁓ is where you see the city as your laboratory, ⁓ as civics and people as the problem to solve for business. ⁓ and a professor ⁓ handed me Richard Florida's creative class book. It was either in that or Who's Your City? I forget which book, but he talked about the simplicity of painting crosswalks green.

speaker-1: Okay. ⁓ well.

speaker-0: in the psychology of color. And I had so badly wanted to save my hometown and save the sadness of the people in it and save myself. ⁓ and through that like one sentence in that book, I was like, Wow, you need to paint everything really colorful so people are happier. ⁓ and the rest is history. So Binghamton Newark truly shaped ⁓ who I could be as a professional. ⁓ I I it would I would be remiss to not talk about Flip Michigan 'cause I cut my teeth there. But I think if I had to choose one city of the, you know, dozen or so at this point that I've been significantly involved with, ⁓ it would be Binghamton, New York.

speaker-1: I love that. Well, for those that are ⁓ maybe unfamiliar maybe they're familiar with the word placemaking, but maybe not the official movement or practice of of placemaking. Could you say a bit about like what is that discipline or practice? What it what is placemaking?

speaker-0: Yeah, ⁓ thank you, Sean, for asking what is placemaking about the discipline and the practice, especially ⁓ today. That conversation has ⁓ really deepened over the past fifteen, twenty years. ⁓ since the ⁓ term was coined, what the nineteen fifties or sixties. ⁓ just the discourse on this term because of the practice of it and the investment in it and the you know, the term is ubiquitous now. ⁓ when I used to have to Have more ⁓ elementary conversations. So I'm really interested in this term. I've never ⁓ done a great job at defining it for myself. ⁓ to just exemplify, when we teach we run a placemaking school here in Jacksonville and we spend four hours defining the term. ⁓ Not even enough time. So ⁓ really what I've come to understand for myself and what I want to emphasize for other practitioners, people I'm like,

speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah.

speaker-0: You're not really doing that or you're doing a real job. Is two words, people and process. ⁓ I was thinking recently that if you if someone shows you like a plaza or ⁓ a vestibule or like a really beautiful place, I get really weary if they're actually placemaking, ⁓ or if the process to the end product was ⁓ done in an office or in your traditional government buildings or in like I'll get really weird placemaking because this work really happens outside in the field, ⁓ in parks, ⁓ in community centers and on people's front porches where the conversations and process are taking place. So the real simple way is it's a it was originally ⁓ a movement to make parks work better for people. There's ⁓ this long list and it's not actually that long, just a list of issues with public space, how they're designed, how they're funded, how they're activated, how they rarely used to reflect the people who end up using them because the designers and funders and managers are are not the end user. They're in that office somewhere and not actually in the space. And so it was just an attempt ⁓ to be really strategic and thoughtful, ⁓ based on some thought leadership from Jane Jacob. Jane Jacobs and William White about what if we did resident drive let the resident drive? What if we did center them? Won't these problems be solved? And so that process of slowing down, of re removing the restrictions of nine to five, ⁓ that process of talking to the everyday person, no matter how inconvenient or long that takes, that and you just get better results, more impact, much better parts, actual people in the parks.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: That's a long winded way of how I would describe that. And then the movement has it's just been incredible to watch it grow the past fifteen years if I've been active. There's jobs in this field. There always were, but they were kind of tangential roles. Now we're hiring directors of placemaking and ⁓ putting resources behind it.

speaker-1: Yeah. Well I love that I mean I love that you talk about slowing down and engaging the people that placemaking to be legitimate is really alongside. Like even if you're motivated by all the right values and desires, if it's done for or on top of versus like really being alongside of, like and why does that matter? I mean I mean part of it's like what you already said, like, well, people will actually use it. That's one of the reasons why you do it alongside them. But are there other reasons why it that you really put placemaking inside of process, like really processing and and d co designing with people, like why does that matter so much in the in the placemaking?

speaker-0: ⁓ there's I I have kind of three answers for this and I I struggled thinking about this because I just do it naturally. Yeah. ⁓ and when I have to slow down to teach this, it's so ingrained in me that I just struggled to articulate it. ⁓ first and foremost, ⁓ the people that invented this term and really sh stewarded, you know, text around it and documentaries around it, their whole thing was resident driven. So that just I I took that literally. And I never not did that. So it wasn't like I was doing placemaking and then, you know, just plopping art everywhere. Yeah in my neighborhoods. I just took resident driven out the gate. It wasn't like I came into that later. and so just because of by way of the field and how it was done designed and learning it very early on. ⁓ the second reason is you 100% you've never gotten worse results by including people and doing the process.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: Never seen it where like resident driven led to a worse product than if the government and non pr nonprofit leaders just took it on. and I think about my process to becoming a great person and how long it takes to make something of yourself. And it it's for me it wasn't who I wanted to eventually be. It was never like a lawyer or a doctor. I just knew I would work really h hard, do great work, try to keep being better.

speaker-1: Yeah, yeah.

speaker-0: over a long period of time and it would lead to a great result. So it that's really is the placemaking process the way I lead it. ⁓ and then the reason it matters is because people are struggling. People are detached, they're disenfranchised, ⁓ they lack purpose ⁓ and they lack agency. And I think part of that is not just because public spaces are poorly built without people Where do you get a chance to have a really healthy civic life? ⁓ we've talked about this before, Sean. ⁓ and this is no offense to any of my colleagues. Healthy civic life doesn't happen in contemporary American government halls. It's actually can be actually ⁓ really discouraging to engage in civic life as it's formatted today. It doesn't I'm not discouraging people from from getting into city hall and city council meetings. ⁓ But the reason I do resident driven is it's one opportunity to really engage people in their civic lives outside of home and work. ⁓ because if we just do homework, go h and and that's just the cycle, while we love our families and our homes, w we we lack purpose. We lack being a part of something bigger. So I'd put residents at the center because that's just what the definition of the term is. And then of the results. ⁓ being ⁓ I don't know like a a number associated, but two times, ten times better than not. And then actually wanting people to live better lives. That's what my root of this work is. I was in Binghamton and just wanted people to live better lives and knew through painting colorful walls people could live better lives, or through hiring their cousin to play in a band on an outdoor stage. ⁓ seeing the centrifugal force of that decision being made over and over where residents get to make decisions that matter to them and that show up. It's not like they, you know, policy moves really slow and government moves slow. They could make a decision but never touch or see it. Whereas in these in this decision making process, they're choosing the bands, choosing the color of the paint and seeing the results immediately. And that that changes people's actual lives, improves lives, actually improves systems and then ultimately improves health outcomes, ⁓ economics, ⁓ et cetera. So just seeing disparities decline by a simple process of putting the resident first is why I continue to do it.

speaker-1: ⁓ I love that. And yeah, and I I think that to me is like the magic of this of like, yes, the like visible, tangible result may be a very beautiful public art or it may be a very beautiful public event in a public space or a better park, et cetera. And like, yes, yes, yes, thousand times yes. But like the process of getting to that quote end result in and of itself is the result. Like when people are are connecting with their neighbors. like leveraging their voice, like that sense of like I belong, I matter, I can aff I can affect my environment and my neighborhood and my neighbors. Like that is like I mean, I love art. I'm not an artist. I I love and appreciate and stand in awe of art, but like that's art. That's beauty of like when community is just in that process of connecting and seeing one another, being seen by one another, ⁓ and just in a civic govern you know, like democracy sense. Like when the that is democracy of like people speak working together to shape their local space. ⁓ so to me it's like the process is the product at some level of like people. Yeah. That's very beautiful. ⁓ so, so look, let's tangible, let's get tangible. So the ⁓ give us an example of of a a process with people for placemaking that you've been a part of that you're like, yes, this represents what I want it to always be about.

speaker-0: Yes. so I would say two components. One that I really f formalized in Flint, Michigan. Okay. And then took that component, brought it to Jacksonville, Florida, where I'm situated, and added another component I'd like to talk about, two of those. The first is open call for public space ideas. ⁓ so did that in Flint, Michigan.

speaker-1: Okay, please, yeah.

speaker-0: ⁓ asked for three thousand dollar public space ideas and we did over a hundred of them in the ⁓ couple two or three years that I ⁓ was there full time. I was always a connected to Flint and working for the Flint Public Art Project as a like a special projects manager. So I'd fly in and out over the years. just that has a really special place in my heart. But open call for ideas is that same thing we were just talking about, where you're offering an engagement component for people to shape their public space in not a way that's ⁓ discouraging or erroneous on the resident. Like they don't have to they just get to participate in a really low barrier way. Every single person, I swear to you, has an idea. Every single person wants to bring it to life and show it off to their city.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: ⁓ and I knew that as a young kid growing up. I knew that ⁓ when I brought ⁓ my own ideas to life in upstate New York. And so I wanted to transfer that same bit of joy and delight over just to the everyday person. so the open call for public space ideas is ⁓ an actual real part of the placemaking process that I absolutely love. that ⁓ represents what I really want to accomplish in this work. ⁓ so we do that here in Jacksonville instead of $3,000, we do $10,000 ideas. ⁓ but that open call for ideas is is really important. I encourage cities all over to use it. If if you have a $50,000 placemaking budget, do an open call and do $10,000, $5,000 project or a thumb combo. But whatever your budget is, scale it to that format. ⁓ the other piece that I was informally doing in Flint, but formalized in Jacksonville and to really like once I realized. the thing people get wrong in this field is resident led. I wanted to just solidify that. Like I wanted to become the super expert in resident led. And so I started a formal body of residents and an an advisory body, if you will, that has turned into a think tank that's highly respected called Task Force. Okay. ⁓ it's free, it's open to the public, anyone can join it. It's very, very easy to join. We and it's not a big lift. We meet twice twice a year. Okay. And task force in Jacksonville, my first year was nineteen people in a room where I asked them so before I go into that, th I asked them everything. They are a group of residents in Jacksonville and I asked them all of the difficult questions. ⁓ they helped me make decisions all along the way. So it grew from nineteen to thirty nine to fifty nine to now like eighty nine people. It's incremental, but it's really important because we outgrew the room.

speaker-1: That's incredible.

speaker-0: We don't fit the room only holds 40 or 50 people and we outgrew the space. So we hold the same meeting twice. And that first year when it was 19 people, I was brand new to the city. And I kind of told them the work I do and how I do it and what I'd like to do in Jacksonville. And that's where the conversation came up. You know, can you help Jacksonville look more like Jacksonville? That was pre ⁓ pre our current mayor and just every room you went into, leadership didn't reflect the city. So a big a big ask was like, could you make our city look more like us? And I think at the time they they didn't so much mean government. I think they meant public space. Like public space didn't feel as diverse as Jacksonville really is. They asked for simple things like, please don't go to the media. ⁓ we're constantly being promised development projects and all of these shiny objects, and we don't see them come to fruition for whatever reason. So we just don't want more heartbreak from you. ⁓ and they just kind of shaped ⁓ the beginning, what I would call the principles that I stand on now for the city of Jacksonville. ⁓ now that the group has grown to almost a hundred people, ⁓ we do participatory budgeting. So I tell them how much we've fundraised and they tell me how to spend it. Do you guys still want to spend 40,000 on school? Do you still want to spend 170 on activations? So they make all those decisions. We also go over the previous year's work. So we do about 10 to 20 projects a year and we say, did anything not go well? ⁓ do need to be more concerned about safety? Is there anyone that needs to move ⁓ ahead faster or slow be slowed down? So we talk about the nitty-gritty of the people and the projects and it continues to shape them over time, which I don't think I give enough credit to because I I just it's again so natural to me, but it's a really powerful piece of the results we have today, only three and a half years in this process since I've been leading it. ⁓ placemaking's not new to Jacksonville, just the type that I do is. ⁓ So th that's the first meeting and ⁓ the second meeting of that body, that advisory body is they choose the project. So when we do that open culture for ideas, we get up to a hundred applications and they choose the five, ten, fifteen projects that they want to do depending on that ⁓ budget.

speaker-1: Yeah, yeah. Well I definitely want to dig into the the classes that you guys are hosting. But for that I'd love an example of maybe how it didn't go well. ⁓ 'cause I know like I I mean I love that like you're constantly what is it is the Mandela quote about like I never I never fail. I I just learn right and so like ⁓ that that's a mentality I've seen you carry of like I'm just constantly like learning, evolving, growing. But what are some spaces you're like, ⁓ that was a learning opportunity?

speaker-0: Yeah, those are the really those are those are deep. ⁓ 'cause I've definitely have failed and ⁓ taken accountability for those failures. okay. So you had talked about, you know, Jacksonville being ⁓ alchemy and that it was right time, right place. ⁓ I talked recently at a panel, ⁓ it wasn't a panel, but I had talked about this and I couldn't believe kinda kinda how much it hit the crowd. You know like when a crowd you feel like and I talked about being a public success but private failure.

speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

speaker-0: ⁓ and how little we talk about, especially in American culture, because we have to sacrifice it to be publicly successful about being healthy in your private life. ⁓ and so some of my biggest failures came at a time when I was not healthy in my private life. ⁓ and so when I talk about Jacksonville being so great, I think I've realized recently it's because it's paired with a really healthy private life. ⁓ and I say that because I wanna talk about two failures if I don't if I cannot cry about them. And one I'll try to go deep in because the language around it is very sensitive. ⁓ and then one I'll just talk about that's recent that just hasn't really been talked about publicly. ⁓ so the first one, ⁓ and I'm gonna speak crass about it, is working in Flint, Michigan, ⁓ as a white woman in a black city. ⁓ and it's not it's I always kind of joke about this, but it's not like sixty forty. It's ninety. It is a a black city. and understanding the limitations of me as a leader in that space. ⁓ working so closely with residents doing amazing work, but at the end, you know, very them very humbly asking for black leadership. and that wasn't necessarily a failure, but I wish I I wish I had more experience understanding how to be successful in that space. ⁓ I never pretend to even understand the challenges the black community faces. And I can articulate them. I certainly can empathize with them. I can quasi-help navigate them, but I'm never going to truly understand ⁓ the disadvantages ⁓ that systems have placed around black communities. And so I failed in Flint ⁓ because I didn't have the skills to navigate that. ⁓ so I hope I'm saying that diplomatically ⁓ and and I'm trying to also really help your audience understand the lesson there. ⁓ and it's a lesson that has stuck with me forever. I just remember I had a predominantly white board and I had to explain one day that we couldn't be curatorial. We can't tell people when they give their ideas what type of music to play. We can't tell them how to gather or how to dance. And that was actually happening. Like we had a specific concert that was marketed as family friendly. And ⁓ Someone had come and said, like, I would never bring my kids there. That was not family friendly. And it in fact absolutely was to the black community family friendly. Your typical barbecue. and that moment was really challenging. And I know later you want to talk about how do I live between and translate between the two worlds of like the higher ups and your everyday resident. ⁓ and I learned there, it already kind of was getting into that space of translating between residents and government.

speaker-1: Right.

speaker-0: Between philanthropy and, you know, the grassroots leaders. And at that moment, I was like, ⁓ I really have a calling on my life. I really have to bridge this gap, put people in the room who otherwise wouldn't meet. I think this is where life's ⁓ where the biggest issues in society will be solved. ⁓ because when I was ⁓ essentially just dealing with racism, ⁓ it at the root of a lot of it was just ignorance and lack of experience. It wasn't always hate.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: ⁓ and so that was a fail. And then here in Jacksonville, ⁓ we work extremely hard for and I learned this in Flint and probably before. While we are placemaking, the real responsibility is clean and safe. And that that responsibility has grown over the years. It used to be easier cheaper to keep people clean and safe. Now it's just expensive and scary and complicated. And you're not only thinking about ⁓ guns, you're thinking about cars and just crazy stuff that could happen. ⁓ and I I've I don't I can't believe I'm gonna say this. I've been lucky enough to deal with it all. I've been lucky enough to deal with an active shooter, to deal with a vehicle through a site, to deal with like the really serious big challenges around public space. And I bring those skills to the classroom and to task force because I want to have those conversations now and not after a thing happens. And so I'm always bestowing that heavy responsibility at points throughout this process because it's not all fun and games. ⁓ so we had a a safety issue at one of our project sites, and it was a fail. It was a fail in how I responded to it. It was a fail in how I trained the project leads. ⁓ it was a fail because my groups you what's called community standards, and some communities have a standard to not involve police and and maybe there's actually times you always have to. ⁓ so it was a fail ⁓ from start to finish. ⁓ I I can take accountability from my part. ⁓ and n no one passed away. and no one was seriously hurt, but people were seriously hurt. ⁓ it was on my watch, on my time, on my dime, on my leadership. And even though I didn't get named in kind of the news and social media frenzy that came after it. it It affected how I lead today. ⁓ so I don't wanna give too much detail. I wanna be thoughtful, but I hope that I'm articulating like fell on my face, failed twice really hard and kind of just how I was able to recover and then ultimately it's not like an emotional recovery, it's like improve the process and keep going.

speaker-1: Brother Roots. We are so grateful to have you listening in to these rich conversations about place-based people-centered social change. Places People Change is not only the title of the podcast, but it's also the title of community engagement resources you can download and put into practice today. If you are looking for sound principles and practical tools to drive neighborhood level belonging and shared action, you can check them out at discovercongruence.com/slash resources. Yeah, yeah. I mean to me that like ha the the leaders that I really admire deeply in this space, ⁓ whether they're community organizers or placemakers or just in that space of caring about neighborhoods and caring about people, is an ability to like ⁓ how would I say it? Ma well it maybe maybe like they take the work very, very, very seriously, but not themselves so much, right? Which like allows to say like, hey, if I'm I may be the I may have all the skills and credentials and authority and role that I need, but if I'm not the right person for the right time in the right community, like I'm not gonna make that about my ego, right? Or if I led with the best intentions and it blew up in my face, I'm not gonna hide behind my int intentions. Well, I didn't mean it. I didn't mean it, or she should have his or he should have done that, or the city should have done this, or actually they they were just being really immature and bickering about something fool like to just say, like, yeah. Here is the way I and my leadership can own this and I can move f like otherwise I don't I don't think you can sustain in in this space for very long, right?

speaker-0: No, it's not high burnout rate. That will be talked about eventually. Super high burnout rate. ⁓ yeah, no, you did you articulated exactly that.

speaker-1: Yeah. Well I'm I'm curious about like well you mentioned the in between spaces. I'm I'm do that first and then maybe talk about the classes that you're running. Like you've you like live and s and in such a like code switching kind of life of like being on the ground, involved in all of these relationships on the ground and activating residents for their neighborhood, but you're also like in city hall and city government and philanthropy and like ⁓ massive ⁓ you know, private developers who are who are acquiring large tracts of land and buildings and making massive changes in s in the in cities. Like ⁓ so what what is it like trying to be in those in between spaces and why is it so important for someone to kind of live in that that space that you live in?

speaker-0: Yes. ⁓ so I really appreciate this question. ⁓ it started when I finally made it to college. ⁓ I was not college destined. I'm a first generation student and I had it's so silly to say I just had no idea how to act on a college campus. ⁓ and my mentors at the time encouraged, you know, networking and getting around different people. ⁓ and I learned just very early on, like I had this weird experience of it's it's called called the towney. If you live in Binghamton, ⁓ and townies don't go to Binghamton University. Like it's a public Ivy League, it's really hard to get into. There's like this huge divide between the residents who live there and ⁓ the college students. And some of my first placemaking assignments were by from the mayor and from the president ⁓ Harvey Stanger of the University at the time to bridge those two. populations because I spoke both languages. I was a gross disgusting, you know, house kid, a house party child in the streets, ⁓ and also like could dress nice by day and go to the classroom at university. And I spoke both languages. And the the mayor of mayor Matt Ryan at the time ⁓ was just believed in me. you know

speaker-1: Okay.

speaker-0: knew that I was a homeless youth, knew that I was not a problem child, but just had problems, and always gave me a a meaningful position in his administration. Not just pouring coffee or, you know, filing. ⁓ he had me run a youth and cycl a youth recycling enhancement program, running a bike program. Like he always gave me meaningfully work, ⁓ meaningful work. ⁓ And then encouraged me to translate between the two communities because it was a problem that him at that I think now like him and the higher ups were probably trying to solve because it was a real issue. There was a lot of contention. So when I realized when that was being not when I realized that was being fostered in me young. I was a teenager. And then when I moved to New York City, ⁓ so I worked my way through college painting murals, ⁓ spray painting, hand painting, and I was at what's called a mural jam. So it was like a long wall. There's t tens of twenties of artists. And at that time I was starting to be an arts administrator. So organizing the mural jams, raising money for them, ordering the paint, and also painting myself. And so we've talked about pattern, you recognize patterns. I start to see this pattern. I'm like maybe twenty-one, twenty-two. I start to see this pattern where I'm in another two worlds that speak opposite languages, the artists and the arts administrator. And I'm I'm doing

speaker-1: Yeah. ⁓

speaker-0: This pattern, and I'm like, ⁓ no, this is probably a s really special magic that I have. ⁓ and I've carried now that I've like now I'm more intentional about it. I'm like, I want to know as many people as possible. I want to see the gaps in their social lives and communication, and I want to fill those gaps. And so I've just been on a very long journey, and I don't often articulate it as that, where I try to very hard and successfully get the f funders and the project leads in the same room. ⁓ and watch conversations happen that ⁓ just otherwise would not happen. And that's where the real change is occurring. And that's what makes the funding flow more because they had that, you know, really tactical moment in a bar meeting the person from the neighborhood they would never otherwise cross paths with. So when you ask how did I get into that, how is it important why is it important to me? ⁓ because I believe that's where real change is occurring. The challenge with it is representation. ⁓ I don't any longer come like when I'm in a conversation with developers and I have to represent the artist or like the average, you know, mom, I'm none of those things anymore. And so I want to make sure I represent them very well, their wants, their needs, their desires. So representation becomes a challenge. And then also it just it starts to feel yucky that I'm lucky enough to be in that room. And I wish that just the person I'm talking about could be in that room. And so when I started to get on stages now, I'm like, if you're gonna book me, bring ten microphones so I got nine other people that have to come it's just not fair anymore. It's not right. So that's a challenge is is representation.

speaker-1: Yeah. I mean I I just and and there are certainly, without question, people in places of power who function with malicious or just selfish intent. Right. No question. ⁓ I wonder though how many of the the the conflicts or the or the or the misses or the the failures of of projects or programs or policies are simply a a matter of a lack of proximity and connection, right? In another ⁓ interview someone was talking about the ⁓ Like the bureaucrats who make the decisions about WIC and where those dollars go and how they function and how they're going to be used. And they chose that career path. So like h hopefully somewhere there was a a very like true, genuine intent to do good in the world. But then there's the people who use WIC, right? Who are who are activating those those things. It's like and those and like and so just to have an organization say, Hey, can we sit in the same room and talk about the budget decisions you're making and the implications of them? With the people who actually have to navigate this system daily. And like, and and the transformative moment of that encounter. So yes, I just wonder if like whether it's like private developers or philanthropists or nonprofit leaders or government officials, like, ⁓ yeah, they're certainly malicious actors that are out there. But I wonder if we kind of started from a space of to say, actually, what if we all quasi cared about some of the same things? We just literally are speaking different languages and our worlds are shaped so differently that if Just talk to each other, something really magical could happen.

speaker-0: Exactly. Like you wouldn't send your friend to your doctor's appointment to like get through your issues, right? The doctor talk to you. It's it's that simple. And then also it's really complicated because just throwing people in a room is risky. ⁓ I've talked to you about like I kinda train both sides. Before the I don't I'm very, very, very intentional. So before I put just I don't just mix people unintentionally. There's a lot of conversation that happens so that when they get together, they can be successful. And you it's it's also not just that piece, it's about the environment. ⁓ board meetings have horrible light, board rooms have fighting for the walls, like it's not the place to have the meeting. Like we have to change up the meeting room. ⁓ I I do it in spaces that are just more natural and have softer edges. ⁓ those are those are tough conversations.

speaker-1: And that's what I've ⁓ love about the way that you lead and work is just absolute deliberateness you have with all aspects of it, right? It's not just like, did I put out a public announcement to invite people, get them in a room and ask like like like the agenda that you're setting, the location of it, the the fact that there's gonna be food there, like the vibe of the room, like that you're training the people who are gonna be in those spaces before those spaces get even opened up. That this is profoundly difficult and delicate work, ⁓ and and the deliberateness with which you use. And one of those, like strategies to be that deliberate are the classes that you're hosting and guiding. So yeah, walk us through like what those are, what you're doing, who's there, what you're talking about. I think this is such a fascinating way of of really activating the people and process for for placemaking.

speaker-0: Yes, I love this so much. And just the same way I said that no matter where you are listening, you should do that open call process with your budget. No matter where you are listening, you should start your placemaking school. ⁓ start with two classes, three, ⁓ just start a placemaking school and teach the basics of what placemaking is, how to permit a park in your city, and then once you get your permit, what to do. That's like public space and placemaking one on one school that anyone can truly teach anywhere. ⁓ so we do the super duper version in Jacksonville. just like everything, I'm very intentional and very thoughtful and it's overly complicated, but somehow I pulled it off. ⁓ the first thing I thought was when I started the pla the placemaking school here in Jacksonville, I called my mentors all around and said, I wanna teach this for real. What do I call it? What are the no no's? What like what are must haves? And ⁓ Right out the gate, they're like, don't call it university, don't call it college. They even said don't give a certificate, but the folks in Jacksonville demanded one. And and and sure that there were diverse perspectives on the topics. ⁓ so our school here is six weeks. It's ⁓ every Tuesday in November and December, except for the holidays. ⁓ I'll tell you what we do and then we're about to change all of it just because the city deserves the innovation. But we do normally

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: Four lecturers in the first four hours. So an hour each. ⁓ the first three or intro, the end lecture is like a keynote. and then afterwards we do the optional discussion section. So you just learned so much, you just naturally want to talk about it. So we'll add additional two hours with a dinner service to talk about it. Yeah, it's a really, really great experience. So the first class we go f we spend all four hours, like I said, defining the term placemaking.

speaker-1: ⁓ that's amazing.

speaker-0: what it is, what it isn't, what we're doing in Jacksonville, what we did in Flint, what we've done in Ireland, what the rest of the world is doing. ⁓ and for I used to teach that class, ⁓ and I I really selfishly want to keep teaching it, but we we brought in Dr. Kara Courage last year, who ⁓ is was involved with the placemaking textbook. ⁓ and I just want Jacksonville to get the best education in the world. ⁓ to zoom out for a second as well, we I

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: make it feel like college. ⁓ I make sure that's the classroom, the textbooks, the syllabus, all of office hours. If you went to college, you know all those terms. So I put all that infrastructure in placemaking school. I make it collegiate. I make it look, feel, and actually is like a college ran class, a college ran course. And that's really important because not everyone gets that experience and it it deserves to be taught like that. ⁓ the second class we go deep into city permitting and government. ⁓ one year we brought in a councilman. another year we brought in s ⁓ the the municipality's parks leaders to teach about permitting public space and government processes and mostly just demystifying it. That's it starts to get really interesting at that time. People don't understand government, they think government shows up to them, they learn you actually need to show up to your government, get involved to shape it. So that's the second class. ⁓ we definitely touch on urban planning and gentrification. We brought folks like Dee Powell and Majora Carter into the classroom who just get nitty-gritty with why you don't have to leave your neighborhood for a better one, essentially is the core of that. ⁓ then we get into the nuts and bolts of project planning and budgeting and safety. ⁓ so we have the incredible Haley Wright come ⁓ and teach event planning and activations and just the stickiness of after you've got your permit, like how to keep it clean and safe.

speaker-1: Wow.

speaker-0: ⁓ and then we add a mix of classes throughout the other two. ⁓ anything from marketing, branding, and storytelling of your project and idea. ⁓ we have taught ⁓ about development as well. We'll bring the big developers into the classroom. Talk about their projects, and it's like the first time all those folks have gotten in the room together. And again, just demystify ⁓ demystify things. And then we do we started adding field trips.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: Where we break out of the classroom. Yeah, we break out of the classroom, we go to project sites of people in Jacksonville so the resident can teach. And I I should have known the how popular that would be. ⁓ 'cause it's probably more comprehensive and digestible. I do want people to have the opportunity to be with the biggest and brightest minds in the world in this, but then we get right back down to the grassroots granularity of the actual parks in Jacksonville and how to move them.

speaker-1: I have a feeling, ⁓ if if there's some neighborhood based leaders, activators, you know, community quarterback, backbone organizations, et cetera, et cetera, ⁓ that may be listening in and if they're driving, they may have just run off their car off the road a little bit when you just said that it's one, it's four hours to six hours long. Two, we have over a hundred seats and it's filling up every time. ⁓ because I imagine for many of my dear friends and colleagues, ⁓ Many of the adjustments have been how do we ask less so that people can actually participate? And s and so like whether it's like moving our neighborhood association meetings to Zoom and doing once a month and like or or how do you provide incentives to get people to show up and offer input? Like so you tell tell me why would a hundred over a hundred people show up for four to six hours for six weeks for something like this. 'Cause you're not providing incentives. Like you're not like you know, there there's no like carrot out there that you're like, Hey, if you come to this, we'll give you fifty dollars to participate or something. Like what's

speaker-0: That's a red flat. Come back to me. I got all these things for you. Like that's not how you date, even date and steward any relationship. no. ⁓ it I think it's just incrementally grown. ⁓ when I said earlier task force went from, you know, 19 people to 89 people. Those nineteen people said, wow, that was amazing and told a couple people. That's probably why it went up to 59. ⁓ and then those 59 people said, No, no, no, no. That was that's this is really good stuff. So it's just incrementally grown. ⁓ and cla the classroom is so much more than just the lectures. Like people do crave learning. ⁓ and the way we learn, even though it's the most accessible it's ever been, you can sit down and watch a YouTube. People are not sitting down and watching online classes really and and reading more than ever. That's even though it's the most accessible, it's the least consumed. And so I love giving people an opportunity to actually expand their minds and then People want to network and connect and grow what they're working on. And so I think it becomes a place where you can actually do that. You meet someone that's a graphic designer and that's what you needed. And it's super, like I said, low barrier. And then the other piece is when I teach, like when I launch the school, I say, yes, everything we do is downtown. The folks who win projects from open call, they have to be downtown. Every dollar we spend is downtown. This school is downtown. But I designed this whole school.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: Cause everything you learn here, you can do in your neighborhood. So we've seen incredible like spin-off projects of students who take the coursework, don't even engage with the rest of our process and go back to their neighborhood and improve their parks. and so I just think there's like again that centrifugal force, that word of mouth, because we don't overly advertise, we're not on TV and radio and everything. And so I think it's it's not just passing along people who've had a great experience. It's like I said, when you walk in from everything you drink and touch and taste is delicious and thoughtful and and heartwarming. ⁓ and then I just I I say this all the time. I just I spoil my people. And I think I feel that. And it it's that simple. And spoiling people is not a a fifty dollar honorarium or like you said, doing less to like going from in-person to zoom or reducing meeting times. Something's really wrong if that's the path that you're on. The path that we've done the whole time is incremental growth and it's grown.

speaker-1: So I mean I so I wanna like not necessarily ask it in the in a sense of like what is success necessary, but like but like for you, what's at stake? 'Cause I know it's not just about public art or better parks. Like you're doing all of this work. Why? What is it that's really at at stake for you and making sure this is done really well?

speaker-0: Man, I'm not even I'm not thoughtful in that way. I'm not that strategic. I'm not a long term thinker. ⁓ I I think I just care about people. ⁓ and I want them to have better lives. It was a selfish space, is I wanted a better life. And I was able to get one through a paintbrush, a camera, a pen for poetry, a typewriter, ⁓ engaging in my civic life in these ways. And so I was like, this is what people need and I want to provide it. ⁓ and we we don't want to live in a world of unhappy, purposeless people. That's what fosters violence. That's what fosters lack of care. That's what fosters pain. And ⁓ at the time I didn't even think about this, but if you don't want your kids to live in a world like that and isn't the number one motivator, we're building the world we want our kids to live in. And so at the time I just knew I wanted to live in a a better world and this is how I could change the world. So when you say what's at stake, like, ⁓ in my in Germany we call it fire in the belly. ⁓ like the value for me is like the cities I'm in I love. I'm there because I love them. I love Jacksonville, Florida. The people here deserve the best and I'm gonna make sure they get it. And so what's at stake is that Jacksonville gets the best. ⁓ and they deserve that. And so it's not more complicated than that. Like I don't have I don't and I work in the business improvement district, so I should probably say like property values. And I can talk that talk and I actually I teach that because I think residents misunderstand gentrification and property values and how this all really works. But there's nothing like at stake for me besides people living their actual best lives and and that's not like the the in the like the the internet this like really, truly thriving in place.

speaker-1: Yeah, yeah. Well I yeah, I I love that you are one of the leaders and voices that are shaping the the the pre the present movement, but the future of this movement. I think your leadership and what you model and what you're doing, like being in those spaces in between, putting residents at the center, thinking about placemaking not as a product or just better street art, but about the way people are involved in a process that like is about belonging in the agency. Like, yeah, I I I love this and I am I am confident ⁓ there are so many people that are gonna just be like stalking you now as they as if they haven't ⁓ started already. ⁓ 'cause yeah, your your leadership, your work is just so awesome.

speaker-0: Thank you. I really, really appreciate it, Sean. I take a lot of pride in it and I just endeavor to do better and be better. And I just can't wait to watch our field grow over the decades.

speaker-1: Yeah, same. Me too. Well thank you, Katie, so much. I mean, obviously for this conversation, but just thank you for the human that you are and and the way that you're operating in our world. We need we need more of you in the world and I'm just grateful to know you and grateful for the time with you today. One of the things about this conversation that will stay with me for a long time is the fact that generating and sustaining engagement is not about making it easier. It's about making it more meaningful. That we don't have time for a few minutes if it feels inconsequential, but we will gladly invest hours and hours if it's something that we feel like it really matters. In the last episode, we talked about this term place attachment as the way belonging shows itself in our connection, not just to our neighbors, but to the neighborhood itself. And I love the idea that place attachment, as Katie describes it, is having a fire in our belly for the places in which we live. Community engagement at its best should be the practice of igniting, stoking, and sustaining that fire. To learn more about Katie and her work, Please check out katieyellow.com. That's k-a-dy-y-yellow.com. Please join us for our next episode as we continue the conversation on centering the power of people in the work of place-based change. Thank you for listening to Places People Change. Visit us at placespeoplechange.com for extended interviews, more information on our guests and their work, show notes, transcripts, and resources to go deeper. Please subscribe and follow us wherever you get your podcast. Special thanks to Acia Butler and the Residents Association of Greater Englewood for the use of their song People, Passion Power, as the music for this series. Find out more about them at r. ⁓ Places People Change is brought to you by Tim Rhodes, producer and AV engineer, David Park, producer and booking manager, Lucas Duncan, production and design assistant, and me, Sean Duncan, your host. We are the rise, hearts on fire, truth in our eyes. From these blocks we build the towers, people passion. Yeah.