Young people

By Andy Marks

Young people. Trouble makers. No respect. Anti-social. Lazy. Don’t know how lucky they are…

Or

Young people. Energetic. New ideas. Creativity. Hope. Motivated. The future…

If you are in the latter camp, then you, like me believe in recognising, nurturing and supporting young people particularly as they will inherit the mess we helped create. Numerous VivaCity posts have celebrated some of the excellent movements in cities around the world that work with young people - the Mwelu Foundation in Nairobi, Afro Reggae in Rio, a Superhero Supply Shop in New York and holes in walls in cities around India all engage and encourage in remarkable ways. However, few of them are run by young people and have the sole aim of recognising the important work young people are already doing for their own communities, which is exactly what the Young Achievers trust does.

The Young Achievers Trust celebrates and supports the outstanding contribution of young volunteers in their communities, offering a range of rewards and support to help them achieve even more. The award scheme covers four categories - arts, environment, community and sport, so if you know a young person (16-24 years old) who is energetic, full of new ideas, creativity, hope and motivation and who is doing something to make their community or city a better place, then please nominate them here. And if you are a young achiever, you can even nominate yourself. The closing date is September 30.

If you know of similar schemes around the world, please let fellow VivaCity folk know below…

VivaCity birthday honours list - part 2

By Julian Broadhead, Dagmar Hoogland, Andy Marks and Shane Solanki

Welcome to the second instalment of the VivaCity birthday honours list, where we select our favourite movements which are changing the way we see and use cities for the better. Feel free to surf, bowl, bomb, flash, plant, eat, discuss, inspire and honour in your neighbourhood…

Ghost Bikes 
Showing the difficulties of a rising bike culture in a car driven world, this initiative is daring and controversial, as its not always appreciated to point out the painful reality. Deserves credit as it takes a difficult subject head on, in a beautiful haunting way. Dagmar

Couch Surfing 
Your sofa isn’t just a place to plonk your butt and zone out to an episode of Lost / Madmen / The Wire / Desperate Housewives (delete as appropriate). It is a place for folk from around the world to seek shelter, be entertained, entertain, share food and life stories. Andy

TED 
The worlds most exciting platform for discussion and new ideas that’s bringing free knowledge and inspiration to the global community. From some of the world’s most inspired thinkers - believing that the power of ideas are the start of any change, TED’s the place to be. Dagmar

Seed Bombs 
One of the most ubiquitous instruments of conflict, reinvented as a means by which to enhance and bring a little bit of nature back to those neglected areas of the urban landscape. Julian

Flash Mobs 
The flash mob is not that new but this spontaneous action shows the collective fun of a crowd, it shows guts, action, and surprise turning to delight. Our example starting on the beach by an enthusiastic boy in red speedo’s embodies the VivaCity spirit. Dagmar

Urban vegetable gardens 
Transforming the way we relate to energy, consumption, food and public space, planting stuff (be it vegetables, fruit or flowers) in the city is the most blatant example of how grassroots movements are spearheading the changes that will affect all of us city dwellers through this century. Shane

Speakeasies 
Underground dining or Speakeasies - no rules, no sky high bills and no time slots, this is a private affair for foodies who love to meet people and welcome each other into their most private part of life: their home. It reflects a playful and social attitude towards food and food sharing. Dagmar

Midnight Cricket 
This most formal of games played spontaneously under the yellow glow of street lights.  What’s not to love? Julian
 

Earning your crust

By Andy Marks

As l traverse life’s winding and unpredictable path, in other words get older, I find I can sit down pretty much anywhere and work, regardless of noise levels and activities around me. For years I had a desk in an office, and perhaps wrongly felt that there was a degree of certainty in such a regular set up. I also deplored the idea of listening to music in the workplace.

How things have changed.

Now I regularly work out of five or six different spaces and find it difficult to concentrate without the accompaniment of music. But I also demand a selection of fine hot drinks and yummy treats to constantly graze on throughout the day. A friend recently described me as being a fellow urban nomad armed with laptop, mobile phone, power cables and that day’s newspapers.

I spent a couple of months in Sydney recently, and in my search for great places to work, I realised I had built up a collection of attributes I was seeking. As well as toothsome foodstuffs, I had honed my list of requirements to free wi-fi with a fast connection, good music , comfortable chairs (even better if there are cushions), well lit, generally cheery folk who work there and a good availability of plug sockets.

Which brings me on to MeatSpaces ‘for people with a laptop instead of an office’, a fledgling directory of places to work submitted by fellow urban nomads.

They will go live as soon as they have enough content, so how about sharing your knowledge of where or where not to try and get some work done? They are starting with London but hope to cover the globe, so if you are in another city, you can still sign-up.

Or take a look at another wonderful city directory but with a slightly different focus. The London Review of Breakfasts does what it says on the tin (as long the tin contains baked beans), with reviews by brekky experts such as Malcolm Eggs, Blake Pudding, Kipper Sutherland and Damon Allbran.

If you know of any directories or listings to help people use cities around the world in new ways, let café society know below
 

Crisis crowd sauce

By Shane Solanki

Ushahidi is an example of open source software at its best. A brilliant idea, Ushahidi (which means “testimony” in Kiswahili) will continue to spread, and be remixed over the next generation, as clients across the world see new uses for its application.

The Ushahidi Engine is an open source platform that allows anyone to gather distributed data via SMS, email or web, and visualize it on a map or timeline. Ushahidi began as a simple website, using user-generated reports and Google Maps, created to gather citizen generated crisis information after the post-election violence in Kenya. But like any effective virus, the idea has permeated across the globe.

Now, the Ushahidi Engine is being used to track crisis response and recovery efforts in Haiti, report upon crime in Atlanta, monitor elections in places as far afield as Mexico and India, help Washington DC dig itself out of snow, and track the worldwide spread of swine flu. It’s being used in the Congo, and the Philippines, amongst many others. How can you foresee using the Ushahidi Engine?

Download it for free here

Spread the word

By Shane Solanki

A superhero supply shop in New York, offering truth serum and mind control capsules; a pirate supply shop in San Francisco, where you can buy mermaid bait repellent and belly-of-the-whale escape kits; a time travel mart in Los Angeles selling time travel sickness pills…

It might seem like light-hearted stuff, but after purchasing your fill of booty, walk behind the scenes of any of these establishments, and you’ll find an alternative classroom. It’s the brainchild of prolific author Dave Eggers. Inspired by a statistic which said that children’s grade averages will rise if given just an hour of one-on-one attention a week, Eggers and friends decided to spread the word setting up the charity 826, a non-profit tutoring, writing, and publishing organization with locations in seven cities across the US.

Eggers delivered a moving and often hilarious lecture about the hurdles he encountered in setting up 826, and how they resulted not only in the birth of a superhero supplies shop, but of a huge movement; view it here

Spreading the word seems to be infectious. In a single generation, millions of people have rocked out on dancefloors to hip hop, a movement born in New York in the seventies. Through hip hop, people across the world connected in new ways with the power of the word. Poetry became fashionable, and spoken word became a vehicle for powerful political dissent. Often engaging those who are disaffected with the educational process, performance poetry is now popular in schools across the planet, giving countless students opportunities to increase both their self-esteem and their ability to express themselves.

This is the perfect example of a VivaCity movement; discovering our own voice, and with it, reshaping the world we see around us – simply by speaking. Mandela famously quoted Marianne Williamson’s poem at his inauguration; “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” Mos Def, Brooklyn’s finest, dropped it like this: “Speech is my hammer, bang the world into shape, now let it fall…”

A VivaCity new year

By Andy Marks

In the spirit of VivaCity, here are some tips on how to use your city in a new way in a new year.

Twinkle twinkle

Find the darkest part of your city and star gaze, parks are good. Turn your lights off and look at the Dark Sky Society and the International Dark Sky Association

Grow some food

Mint for a cuppa, tomatoes for your sarny, alfalfa in an old jar, or if you are feeling a tad more adventurous have fresh eggs from a clucking companion. Very satisfying indeed.

Pass on a beloved book

Leave a favorite novel of yours in a public place, but first sign it up to bookcrossing Set it free and see how many hands it passes through.

Free your food

Go dumpster diving and salvage perfectly good food thrown out by food retailers. If that is too much to stomach you can get fantastic tips on how to make the most of your edibles at Love Food Hate Waste

Have a dinner party and charge your guests for the privilege. Give your takings to charity, and have a friend host it the following month. In a year that’s lots of great soirees, and a load of cash raised for good causes.

Walk and talk in your city

Walk in an area you don’t know too well or at a time of day you are not usually out. Take friends with you; everyone has to find out one piece of local info about the area.

What do you see?

Give a young person a camera. Ask for a picture a week for 10 weeks, print the pictures out and give them back to the young snapper. See how the mwelu foundation do it.

Be a cloud inspector

Look up and contemplate those little fluffy clouds. Go one step further and join the Cloud Appreciation Society Before you know it, you, like us will find having your head in the clouds addictive. Protective clothing optional. 

Honesty is the best policy

Sell something delicious using an honesty box and let us know how you get on. Can the collective masses of city dwellers be incorruptible? We think so.

Ideas worth spreading

By Shane Solanki 

If you haven’t heard of TED (http://www.ted.com/) by now, the chances are you soon will. It began as an invitation-only conference held in California, where speakers delivered lectures on technology, entertainment and design.

But now, TED speakers wax lyrical about all manner of subjects; you can find lectures on science, arts, politics, education, culture, business, global issues and development, amongst many more topics. The best lectures are available online for free (http://www.ted.com/talks). We at Vivacity think they’re much better for you than soap operas!

The organizers state, “we believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So we’re building here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world’smost inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other”.

Like any hungry virus, it’s beginning to spread: conferences have now been held in the UK,  Tanzania, Mysore, and India. Interested? Get in touch! (http://www.ted.com/index.php/pages/view/id/20) Perhaps you can recommend speakers, suggest organizing a TED conference in your local ‘hood, or even model your own event on the TED prototype… at the very least, check out their site – we’re sure you’ll find it one of the most inspiring sites you’ve ever encountered.

Life is full of surprises

By Andy Marks in Sydney

It was all started by a valiant young chap in red budgie-smugglers. With sun burnt arms and a red V where his shirt normally opens, this intrepid mover single-handedly changed our view that the flash mob was dead. That first wiggle resurrected what had previously been butchered by a UK mobile phone company who staged a counterfeit flash mob in a London railway station, taking it out of the hands of the people and in to advertising la-la land.

Last week on Bondi Beach, the flash in flash mob lived and was loved. Mr red budgie-smugglers looked innocent enough lying on a towel but when he pressed play on his boom box, he stood up and started giving it some very smooth moves, as Ben Lee’s Catch My Disease filled the sun drenched air. Several hundred people joined in, wearing a radiant spectrum of beach attire, and everyone else had grins from ear to ear.

At VivaCity we can now love the idea of flash mobs again. After all they are anarchic but pose no real threat, they are planned but wonderfully spontaneous, and above all they are completely silly whilst demonstrating the power of crowds. 

Watch and grin at the mob in action www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9rytUeq62k

We live on an urban planet

By Andy Marks

We live on an urban planet and this was really brought home to us when we saw this logo celebrating 175 years of RIBA, the Royal Institute of British Architects www.architecture.com/. 

The logo shows a range of iconic buildings and whilst they call it a “celebratory splash”, we say it highlights just how important it is to find new ways of using our cities.

To find new ways of connecting with the people around us, new ways of expressing ourselves in an urban landscape, new ways of navigating the city streets, new ways of using time and space in a ‘man-made’ world where there are arguably too many of us.

To find new ways of feeling alive, new ways of being invigorated, and new things to be a part of, so that we will always have new things to post on VivaCity!

If you have ideas on how to use our cities in new ways, let fellow VivaCity folk know below.

Two wheeled tributes

By Julian Broadhead

Whether you regard yourself as Lance Armstrong’s natural successor, a single-speed toting courier or someone who’d prefer to have a wicker basket on the front, cycling has evolved as probably the best form of city transport. If you haven’t been on a bike recently, we would strongly encourage you to re-acquaint yourself, as there’s nothing quite like getting about under your own steam, legs pumping and feet spinning.

Yet it is also worth bearing in mind that, despite its growing popularity, cycling should be approached with a certain amount of preparation and sensible caution. Whilst you are by no means taking your life in your hands (statistically in the UK, one cyclist is killed for every twenty million miles of cycling), it is worth bearing in mind that we are the most vulnerable road users.

Against this backdrop, Ghostbikes www.ghostbikes.org is a particularly commendable initiative. Originally started as an art project in San Francisco in 2002, it was soon adopted and evolved by the cycling community as a way to commemorate fallen cyclists. Simply, an old bike (stripped down to deter theft or vandalism) is painted white and placed in the location where the rider has been killed, with an accompanying plaque. It has clearly touched people, with ghost bikes now on display in numerous locations across fifteen countries.

Yet the scheme has not been without its critics. Aside from bureaucratic objections to mounting bicycles in public spaces, there has also been some debate about the impact of the installations. Detractors maintain that the pieces discourage people from taking up cycling because they highlight mortalities, despite the fact that these are extremely rare. For its advocates however, the positives are twofold; firstly, to commemorate those who have died so tragically and secondly, to act as a timely reminder to both cyclists and drivers about respecting those with whom they share the road.

For us at VivaCity, the outtake is clear. Be sensible but not daunted, get out there and pedal, pedal, pedal.