 Welcome to coast to coast. My name is Lily Weinberg. I'm here joined by my colleague Lillian Krall. Good. I'm so happy to be reunited with you on coast to coast. It's been a while. It's hard to believe that we've actually been doing this for over a year, I believe. Yes. We started these shows soon after the pandemic started, and so it's been a year. And we've all gone through so many changes, and I'm really excited to join you again in this dialogue. Yeah, me too. And really, as you said, the purpose of coast to coast really was to look at cities during this rapid period of change with respect to the pandemic that was going on. And we've looked at so many different topics from public spaces to mobility to technology with an extra emphasis on equity and how we think about inclusivity in our cities. And now I think it's a really interesting time because we were talking about this other day, Lillian. You know, it's now really we're thinking about adaptive recovery in our cities, you know, and how cities can can build forward, build back better. And I think that we're going to have a really interesting conversation today about the evaluation on public spaces and how really cities can can move forward with with these findings. So I would love to hear what you think about that and what we're going to talk about today. Yeah, I mean, I think that's the question for all of us, right, is we all start to get vaccinated. I know I've got my one shot in my next shots coming in next week. Now it's like, Well, what does this new world look like? Right. And so what's great about working at night and partnering with colleagues like yourself, right, is we've been talking about public spaces and the importance of public spaces at night. Today, we're really going to talk about equity, equity in the public space and highlight some new research on what it means to have community led public spaces, and how that really prepares us to revitalize and reinvest in the spaces as we recover and open up our cities. We're going to reflect on COVID-19 and our nation's racial reckoning and the role that public spaces have played in our communities. And we're also going to talk our guests are going to talk really about how we leverage this moment to build more inclusive equitable public spaces moving forward. Excited for our guests. So let's welcome them on on board. First, we have Tosh Rayon, the program manager of the Centennial Parkside. We're also joined by Alexa Bush, urban designer, director of the East region for the city of Detroit. And Julia Day, the director and team lead of Gail, who led the research that's really going to ground our discussion today. So their bios are in the invite. We encourage you all to check out more about their work. And they may be familiar to many of our guests today, but the way we're going to structure this is Lily and I are going to lead an interview and a conversation for about 25 minutes. And then we're going to switch it up to type to take the live questions from the audience to get you all involved and see what you know is resonating for everyone out there. So, Lily, I want to start us off. Sure. Yeah, thanks for it for the TFN and thrilled to have Julia Tosh and Alexa to have you guys join us. So thanks a lot for that. And so this conversation is anchored in research research that that night foundation partnered with with Gail on and we'll also link to the research in the chat box. As you guys are thinking about your questions in the audience, but first I want to start with some context setting how how you all are are how do you think about community led public spaces. How do you think about engagement for public spaces and I want to start with you Julia to tell us a bit about the evaluation that night and Gail partnered on and at a high level. What were some of the findings that we had around community led public spaces. And please, when you're talking about this. If you could define to for our audience members what is community led mean. So I'll hand it off to you Julia. Sure, thank you Lily and good afternoon everyone it is a pleasure to be here and to share the stage with such inspiring practitioners. So, back in the summer of 2020 get night engaged Gail to develop an impact assessment that could uncover and document the factors that shape engaging in equitable public spaces. The assessment focused on seven projects in Akron Detroit, Philadelphia and San Jose and use the multi method approach to explore how the sites came to be and how they're working today. They represent neighborhood parks, citywide destinations and nature spaces. And, you know, when we say impact assessment I think it's important to point out that we were not asked to say whether these spaces were, you know, working or not good or bad. Not at all they were all chosen because to be part of the study because of the impact they're already having and the leadership that has already brought them to life. And so I, you know, I think our charge is really to figure out what are these core drivers and factors that lead to equitable and engaging outcomes. And how can we amplify the great work that practitioners like Alexa and Tasha are doing and, and in a way that more practitioners can learn from. So, you know, when we talk about community led, we mean places where people who live in the neighborhoods or cities where these public spaces exists. And say neighborhood don't have a type of space and the reach it has how they're engaged and invited to have an active role in the site throughout its life cycle from inception to design to participation in ongoing governance programming and operations. And, you know, we also know community doesn't just mean one thing. There are many different types of communities within a community. So it's important to think about how those, you know, multiple groups are reached as well. What we found are that spaces that our community led adapted to the local needs and fostered more equitable access and greater resilience during the pandemic. So, you know, we were looking at sites and the impact they were having pre pandemic but of course the research focused on this past year to. And so what this actually means is that these sites were creating a way for engagement to happen throughout. And I think many of the listeners on this program probably know engagement is important and I think what these projects did is really tailor that to the specific needs of their communities and really thought about how they could build trust and partnerships with residents and especially communities of color that had experienced active disinvestment in their neighborhoods over the past decades and really recognize that time was needed to build trust and listen and and really think about how these projects could meet community needs. And then that engagement increased during the pandemic to develop responsive programming and support changing needs. So I'd say, you know, overall the findings really highlight the power public spaces have to serve as a platform for trust building for community development and as a key factor in in COVID-19 recovery strategies. Yeah, that I mean that's exactly right and and what I found so powerful was in the report, I mean it's the community led public spaces increases usage increases attachment increases trust, and that really came out loud and clear, and then there's that I want to pass it to to Tosh and hear directly from you as a as a community lead within Philadelphia and how you think about community led public spaces through your work if you can give some context setting. Sure. Hi everybody I'm glad to be here as stated my name is Tasha rayon and the program director for Centennial Parkside Community Development Corporation we're located in the East Parkside section of Philadelphia directly across the street from the zoo. Okay, so, so in reference to our public spaces and in becoming more active, you know, we're still, we're still willing reeling from the riots. And in, as we go forward, as a community, we are recognizing that it's, it's process for us to to feel comfortable enough to come out into our park spaces or community spaces, even sometimes our playgrounds. It's a work in progress. But I think that what it requires is the constant conversation about what that needs to look like from everything from mapping out our safe spaces and corridors to what what walkability looks like to even things as simple as sitting on our park spaces, especially for our young men of color, they can get a little bit tricky so right now we're we're, there's still a little bit of apprehension sometimes about coming out into our public spaces but we're working on what that that needs to look like, especially in in lieu of obviously the restrictions from COVID-19 and and all of those things that we have to be so conscious of in terms of of our health but what I can say is that when people do have the opportunity to go out and our parkside edge where we basically have most of our activities is it really is a very, very busy street corridor area like there's constant traffic moving back and forth so when we think about engaging activities in those areas we have to be really careful about a number of things. But people are because of the pandemic people want to come out and they want to ride their bikes and mask up and and do all of those things that sometimes they were really doing so exercise is a big thing on our corridors walking. And so we try to take advantage of those moments that we can take advantage of safely. That's great. And we're going to we're going to dig into some of the really good work that that that you've done touch. But I want to go next to Alexa and the work that you're doing in Detroit tell us a bit about how you think about community led public spaces. What does that mean to you. Absolutely. And hi everyone Alexa Bush here from the planning department with the city of Detroit. I think for us it's really interesting to be considering this work in response to sort of what does recovery look like after COVID-19, because a lot of where we began the work, especially at Ella Fitzgerald Park which is highlighted in the report was coming out of the city of Detroit's municipal bankruptcy and really trying to define what would inclusive recovery look like in neighborhoods in a majority black city in America. We really knew at that point that a top down way of working at the city really wasn't going to work and really needed to come up with a way to be more collaborative and to build the trust with residents to enable us to do that. We are thinking early on was that public space really had to be at the heart of a recovery like that that was truly inclusive. That we did want to co create a vision with residents in the neighborhood about the future of their community. But to do that Julia raised a great point you know what does that look like in communities that have been long disinvested majority black communities that haven't seen resources. How could we as a city who just come through bankruptcy you know rebuild that trust with people build a sense of belief and hope that we were actually going to follow through with the things that we said we wanted to do. And that the investment was really for people in these communities who had stayed as opposed to you know for someone else for someone who might come in the future. But that that gap that Julia identified of bridging you know the the history of the experience that people had had both with the city development everything else really led us to you know be very intentional I think from the beginning about the role of community and the whole visioning and planning process and doing the work to figure out how to engage people where they were to create a really and give them a really authentic and meaningful voice and what are these public spaces but bigger than that what's the vision for their community going forward. This is great I'm taking a lot of notes because I think what you're all really what I love that you're all hitting on is that the idea that you know these communities have residents that have been there for a while and there is a lot of distrust and now we've gone through a really period where everyone is raw in some ways I don't know that there's a better word for it and so like I love the point Alexa like now as we're coming back and we are recovering. How do we recover with the people that have been living there we you know I know I work in a space we're all saying about future city and it's like with the future but it's like how do we focus on the people that are there so Josh and Alexa maybe will take turns with both of you so now kind of just telling us with this context how have you been pivoting. Can you tell us a little bit more of the examples that your your work is is is exploring and also what have you learned in the moment with respect to engagement and public space that you really think has that maybe has surprised you a bit about about this this moment in time. Tosh you want to you want to take that one first. Well we had to just like the rest of the nation we had to make a rapid pivot. We didn't want to lose momentum in this this was really important for us and especially during this time. I think it was imperative that we show as an organization that we were cohesive and unified in our leadership and so what we didn't want to do was skip a beat. And so we hit the ground running as a team that I'm so super grateful for and so many respects but we had to go into our virtual component and that proved to be something that was really strong for us. Especially when it came comes to to our young people because I think we lose sight of how or we can easily lose sight of how this affects them as well. And so we have a strong focus on our youth component as well as the rest of the neighborhood and so we went into programming for for art and creativity. We went into programming for things that people might really use as a tool and be that could be very useful for our community like financial literacy. We have programs every week. We also went into discussions with our young people specifically our young black males about how they're they're feeling in this time of unrest which is has proven to be very helpful in the conversations sort of like our table talk conversations are red table talk conversations so we have a group of 12 young black men who come to the table every week and they talk about things that that affect them in the news and current events and things that are happening around the nation. So it helps us to be able to set the stage and program for for other things that are coming up in the future and and to build something that's a bit more robust as we come out of these times for you know for with the pandemic. So to answer that question specifically I would say we went into virtual programming and some of the things that I've learned about our public spaces. You know you is kind of like that saying that you never miss the water to the well runs dry. And so these spaces you know that we are taking for granted for all of this time all of a sudden when you're quarantined and you're in a house and you're thinking oh good lord I need to get out of the house what am I going to do so so so you go outside you put your mask on and you breathe and somehow that necessity to pull yourself away just it just it gets rid of all of the trepidations and the fearlessness because you just want to go sit outside and get some air. So you know you do the you do what you have to do and you grab your mom or whoever and you just go outside and take a walk and and we are very fortunate to have our benches and our porches on the parkside edge which you know prior to covid they and through covid because we have very dedicated people who work on our parkside edge is just a beautiful place to be. It's beautiful. And so I think you know people even though they're still some apprehension and they're still at fear of covid they get out and they are taking advantage of certain places. That's great to hear. Alexa what what have you learned to write. Yeah you know I would build on that same point that Tosh raises is the big pivot for us was you know going to virtual early on in the pandemic just when there was so little known about what was going on. And I think what it what it showed us was a couple different things. You know I think we'd always been champions for public space and been connecting it to economic development and I think more than anything the pandemic has just shown that the resilience that that can give a community be it you know that opportunity to meet people and actually socialize really outside the way that businesses have spilled out onto the streets. I think all these times that we were making the case for public space it's really proven its value during the pandemic that we're hopeful you know leads to continued investment in the public realm. We also learned you know that all of that investment into people that we had done you know I think community engagement can become very transactional where you're like. I'm going to go to the community and ask them what they think and then I'm going to write it down them to do something and then see you later. You know we really approached it as relationship building that I think for us that pivot to virtual only worked because we had real relationships with people where we knew how to find them we knew the block club leaders who could help get people connected. But that investment in social capital as much as the physical space really yeah paid off in terms of our ability to keep engaging with people. We were really surprised in the beginning we really asked to that question that Tosh raised the momentum like hey do you guys even want to talk to us about this stuff are you just trying to figure out like. How do I manage my family and my kids and like the in the crisis of the moment and we were really taken aback that most of the people we spoke to in the community were like. Nope absolutely like do not stop like no like we don't want the investment to stop we don't want you guys to go away we want to keep engaging around you know what this means in our community that that was really kind of surprising and exciting for us. I think the other big pivot and I don't really have a good answer yet it's something we're just sort of dipping into and also learning what the needs are and what the partners might be. But you know Lily and you talked about this issue of being really raw and Tosh you were talking about you know your conversations with young black men. We really think that like mental health is going to be a really huge theme for us that you know we think there's a place for having some of those conversations and using public space as a platform. But that's an area that I know we're all thinking a lot about in terms of yeah what's next and how do we come together around recovery. Yeah and I love this point about you know the resilience and the engagement piece being so critical and having had some engagement experience and connection before making communities more resilient. Julia to you in this report which I've already had a sneak peek about so I'm excited for you to talk some more what interesting lessons did you get out of the report in terms of COVID-19 especially excuse me in terms of what did we learn that actually applies to COVID-19 and the recovery. Yeah I'm just nodding my head vigorously to what Alexa and Tosh just said especially around just you know getting outside and how that can make a world of difference. I have two small kids and things can get quite tense in the house in our you know an apartment and going outside can really like make everything seem okay at least for a little bit. And I think you know that's something that was really really made clear through this work and this past year is just public spaces, especially our local neighborhood ones, including streets and sidewalks are not just nice to have amenities. They are vital community assets and for exactly what Alexa was just saying like for our mental health and that was something we even looked at in the study and heard from our survey respondents that neighborhood parks in particular were being used to support mental health just to help you know people feel better during this time and I think you know we've seen their these spaces are also vital for helping businesses stay afloat for artists reach reach new new audiences share their work for citizens and people to come together to express. Opinion right during times where civic expression is so vital and. You know, I think our hope is that the findings from the study can really help show that as we think about the recovery and as we think about what how to really invest in cities and strengthen cities is that public spaces are seen as these platforms that you know while they maybe don't. Always perfectly fit into like the infrastructure box or don't always line up with the transportation investment. They actually need to be considered with these investments because they can they can be these platforms that build trust so that more change can happen in a way that really supports a neighborhood and and what residents have been asking for for a lot of times years. Decades. And and at their their release considered vital components of the pandemic and I think as both Tasha and Alexis said to it's not just the spaces themselves it's it's the people that that bring these spaces to life right the organizations the city agencies that that help support the programming. And the residents do a lot of the programming to and that should be something we continue to invest in and and the maintenance and ongoing operations of these spaces also needs intentional investment. Yeah, that trust point is so is so important. So let's talk a little bit about that. Tasha and Alexa, we know that open does not mean inclusive. We've talked about it on the show throughout last year and several episodes, and especially for communities of color so how are you both addressing this within your public spaces and you've already alluded to some of this but can you go deeper. Maybe touch will start first with you. I love that red table talk example you've already shared with us. Yeah, you know, trust. You know these conversations can't you can't just do one and then hit it and quit it you got to really make sure that the conversations are ongoing. And sometimes you even have to really be specific about the topics because people sometimes have a fear of having the hard conversations. And as an organization who leads one of the organizations that leads the community it's kind of up to us to do the deep dive go into the community and talk about the things very candidly that may be on people's minds. You know, we have a vast community of senior homeowners who are fearful sometimes coming out of their house their homes because there's so much gun violence in our neighborhoods, you know, you can't, you know, I sometimes you're just you're afraid for your kids to even get off the bus. You know, and so it's so we got to talk about what that looks like. And, and in the fear of moving around, but but not only just the things that are dark. We also have to have conversations about the things that we want to see, you know the good things and the happy things just like we have things that are not so good. We have our play streets happening and we have, you know, again, our programs that happen for young people from week to week. And so we try to just make sure that we continue on with the conversations that we ask the questions we go and we knock on doors, you know, and when we can sit in our open spaces, then we plan to do that with obviously, you know, with respect to COVID. And, and the risk safety restrictions. So I hope that answered your question. Definitely. Yeah. And Alexa, any reflections? Yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, I think that was so well said, Tosh. I mean, I think I could maybe contribute a couple other ways we've tried to build some of those bridges. I think one of the key things for us has been follow through that, you know, there have been plans people have talked about ideas for a long time. It's really being able to deliver that. I think for us started to rebuild that trust that we were serious, you know, that we were going to follow up what we said with actual investment. And that meant not only into the places, right? I think it also meant for us, the people we tried things like giving residents mini grants to lead projects, you know, whatever they wanted to lead. Julia mentioned some of the community led programming. And I think for us, like investing in that social infrastructure and building the culture of how this park would be used was equally as important as the design. And actually empowering people to like run the programming that you want to see and actually giving them some resources to do that. I think for us was really huge in changing the conversation about, you know, who this was for and why, you know, what the character and the culture of the space ended up being. Yeah. Julia, do you have any insights from the report that, you know, address these points? Just to, you know, really affirm, we found the same as what Alexa and Tasha are saying that, you know, in all seven of these projects addressing how to make the spaces inclusive was a key goal. And some of them are, you know, finding great new ways to do that. But, but it is an ongoing, an ongoing focus and something that I think Tasha said, like, it doesn't happen overnight. This needs ongoing effort and resources behind it. And it was that those ongoing conversations and engagement that Alexa and Tasha are talking about that did lead projects to be more resilient during during this pandemic and invite greater use from local residents. So I think just however we can expand support of the local organizations and agencies to continue this engagement is key. Yeah. And I think, you know, one of the things that that I'm hearing is and and something that was emphasized in the report Julia was talking about community led throughout the life cycle. And Tasha, you pointed this out that it's not not just one time you don't you don't engage one time you know this is about from design to governance literally of these public spaces which is hard work to do. And Alexa, you talked about the mini grant program that the piloting I just it's really brilliant the work that that you all have done with the with the community engagement. So we have that we're going to pivot to the questions there. There's a question around around moving forward. How, how are you guys thinking about the recovery. And and and so look, there are billions and billions of dollars are going to be released for infrastructure projects for public space, and also for workforce, which I think is interesting as we think about our public spaces. So how can we leverage this time to build more inclusive, equitable public spaces. So I want to Alexa, can you can you start. Sure. You know, I, I'm excited for the opportunity, I think, as a lot of us have mentioned, you know, people have really seen the value of public space in the pandemic and I think maybe have a new appreciation. What I always think is so key about resources like that is for us to think outside the box a little bit. I think sometimes people get into asylum of like, I do parks and I need park funding or I do streets and I need this, but I think when you start to think of this idea of infrastructure and public space really as a whole kind of civic infrastructure that supports trust that supports communities. Some of it is even just being being flexible and how you define your project. Right. I know for us in Detroit, we try to deliberately link like streets with small business support adjacent to a park that's walkable to a school, but really kind of thinking beyond like a specific type of public space and thinking more about, you know, the public realm as a bigger inclusive connected entity, maybe a way to use funds that might come from different, you know, federal agencies, etc, to actually push forward a more deliberate agenda around public space. You want to jump in and tell us a bit about how you're thinking about adaptive recovery and potentially the large amount of dollars that are going to be pouring into cities. Yeah, you know, I think our efforts are more individualized and intentional when it comes to our activity. We have funds that are allotted now for things like beautification, street cleanup and planting in our food shares and stuff like that. And I think that right now, for us, as we begin to open up more, that's where our more individualized concentration is. You know, yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. And Julia, anything that you want to add in because you have this really interesting perspective of like a global perspective of how cities across the country are thinking this through the recovery piece, the massive amount of dollars that are coming in for recovery. What are your thoughts? Yeah, just this social infrastructure piece that Alexa mentioned, I think is so key and just really the need to highlight the social component of all of this work in addition to the physical investment our cities need is, you know, is what brings these spaces to life and actually allows them to meet the needs that have been expressed by communities and the desires for the future, as well as just the maintenance to make sure that the quality of these spaces stays intact. And I think, you know, one thing I hope work like this can help elevate is the importance of not just engagement but really understanding what is the lived experience of a certain community and communities like, you know, what are people, what are daily routines like, how are people moving around, where are they spending time, what feels safe and actually give some, you know, trust that how you feel in a place and how you're acting there today is important and those are things that we as designers or policy makers really need to make sure we're understanding and elevating and using as we shape, you know, spaces and programs. It sounds really simple, right, but we know so often we, in the planning world, development world can can start a conversation or a project by thinking about the form or the engineering or the, the aesthetics of something and as an afterthought ask, oh wait a second, who are we inviting in and what what is the experience we're trying to create here. And we want to invert that and make sure that we are first starting with a focus on on the people of the, you know, in these places. Yeah, that's a great question. You know, this is a discussion we've been having internally. And Lily, you know, we've heard Alberto talk about this. We, we, we talk about community led we talked about resident led, but how do we not fool ourselves into thinking that just some engagement really, and we can kind of check that box how do we really ensure that when we say community led it really is community led. And so to your point to that that's very easy said than done. Tosh and Alexa, I mean, how do we hold ourselves accountable to that. And, and frankly, I guess the question is, can we really do that. Because in some ways, I think the discussion we've had internally, it means we have to seed some power over to another great discussion and we've had in in various different, you know, discussions around public spaces but how do you all, how do you all think about that part of the work. Let me be real honest. Okay, when you start talking about we're opening up the conversations to community community organizations outside of your community organization. You are going to have to have and I mean no offense to anybody because there are little fires everywhere. And you need to know before going in the history of the community of which you serve, because if you don't, here's gonna be a problem. And I'm just being really honest with you, you know, our community leaders, they were there long before we got there. And, and, you know, they deserve every bit of respect available, because long before we put these, you know, surveys in order and built our brick and mortar buildings for us to have our administrative offices and our conversations, you know, we again, and we talked about this before, you know, we have our community residents are beautiful seniors who pulled all of these things together without being a registered community organization. You know, they did it at their grandmama's tables. And so when you go in and you are helping you or you want you have the intention of helping a community. You need to listen to what they're saying, you need to listen to what the residents are saying, and what they're putting on the table. And then you know, you're going to have to wear a couple of different hats, you're going to have to be the listener, you're going to have to be the therapist, the little fire put around her, you know, and then the and then the connector with the best intentions, because if you are not authentic, when you go in to have the conversations with the much respected residents of the community, they know it. So, you know, if you're going in, you better go in sincerely and know that the residents of the community of the communities are not to be disrespected. You know, they may not have all of the terminology that we have they may not know what the structure should be specifically. But trust me, they know how to pull it together and it is our job to support those conversations and I think if you go in with that frame of respect. I think you can be really, really successful in assisting the community efforts. Yeah, I mean, I would agree wholeheartedly with so many of those points that yeah, like really being authentic and understanding those dynamics is key to really making sure that you're accountable. You know, we were talking about power, which I think is really key we've been talking about trust and for me they go both ways if I want people to trust me I have to trust them back. And that does involve, you know, sharing decision making in various ways. It doesn't happen overnight. I think when you're talking about, you know, community groups, institutions, long time residents, there's there's history with everyone. I think if you even if you go in well intentioned and you're like, yeah, we're going to share power and it's going to be like super fun like you probably have a rocky road and that's okay. But you know when you're talking about local government you're talking about all these other institutions. I would say my best advice is just to move slowly and build that trust both ways so that the worst thing you could do I think is like go to the community be really excited be like we're going to share power and then a board is like, like we're drawing the line right like you need to build that confidence on both sides as you go. That I think it's critical but move, move slow as opposed to like jump in too fast because there's a lot of yeah little fires or minefields that I think like are rooted in history that you have to work through. Great. Lily I don't know if you want, there have been a couple of questions around the diversity of leadership and staff and city and how that doesn't always resonate or translate excuse me into racial equity in terms of policy resources on community building so what other steps can we take. And I think this kind of builds on this idea like how do we start to not just listen but build trust through actually taking action based on what people are what the feedback we're hearing from community so how do we how do we ensure some of some of these steps to be really acted on as we're as we're listening and and also synthesizing a lot of what the community has been saying for decades. Anybody. I mean, I think it, it's sort of rooted in the same principles of like, I know one of the things that we are really conscious of at the city is like we are always trying to do work with resources behind it. That we don't just want to go engage people and talk about things and like have a great conversation and then never show up again right like I think that's at the root of so much of the mistrust that exists. And that I guess for us it's, it's, you know, being much more transparent with things like budget and transparency and trying and sometimes it is saying like the community might have this really cool idea and you're like, well, right now at the city like that isn't a jurisdiction that we have or like we don't actually have funding for that right now like having being more honest with people about the boundaries that you do have it whatever institution you're working at isn't to tell the community it's a bad idea but I think it's more about being really honest with expectations and figuring out, you know, maybe you can 100% do that idea but are there parts of it that you can are there other resources or partners who maybe are a better fit. But yeah, I think it's a lot about being really honest with people about what what what you are able to do as an institution and what the expectation should be. And I have a an add to that. You know, I think another thing to think about as, as we enter and aim to enter with respect and understanding and an openness to understand the history of a place right it's, it's also about being able to you know, not go in with a pre meditated idea or a real a prescription right and I think sometimes we see okay great we've got funding to do x, y and z in this place. And then there's a question of well the community doesn't seem to support this or nobody's coming to our meetings or they're not happy about it. It's like, well, maybe that's because people have actually been asking for something else for 20 years and responded and now they see there is funding and it's going to something else so I think making sure there's room and space to understand how that might exist and make those connections. And ideally, you know, be be responsive to in that sense and I think you know, public spaces cannot solve all of our problems but I think the beauty of them is that they are these platforms and there is actually a lot of opportunity for them to connect the dots and connect a lot of things that people are looking for. Which is a good point. It's a super good point. And, you know, I love that you said that sometimes you know people have other ideas about where they want to see funding going from the door and you know, although I'm not a super big fan of like surveying and stuff like that and all that technical stuff. It does really come in handy sometimes when you're in meetings with people when you're in meetings with your residents so resident association. When you're in meetings with the, you know, playground park people, you know, and the people that you love to talk to on the day to day, you can take opportunities to pass these papers around and say hey what do you want to see. And it's not that, you know, it looks so formal and you don't love doing it but when you have the opportunity to really, you know, ask the questions and even like pull out the paper and from one season to another season it might look different depending on what the experiences have been throughout the year. So you want to you got to stay on top of that. And sometimes it is sometimes people will write down things that they can't actually they don't feel comfortable coming out and saying so you have to, you know, try every effort and try every angle to get the words out of the people that you care for so much in the communities. And so, you know, I'm not again I'm not a big fan of survey, but it does come in handy, so that when you do, when these opportunities do come up, you can pretty much know. And you can go back to your tools and refer to them and say, you know, okay, here's here's what we're saying this is the popular consensus this is, you know, what people are trying to see and let's let's address that first. Before we talk about a larger agenda of what we think needs to happen. Well, it's awesome and you make such a great point. Because what you're talking about again is the life cycle of community led and you if a constant feedback loop, which whether it's surveys or whatever I mean it's just constantly, you know, getting feedback from your community. It's hard work. You all we are at time actually the time flew by. But this was an amazing conversation around public spaces community led work anchored in really good research from Gail and and thank you to Tosh, Alexa and Julia joining us in this conversation and thanks to our audience for for the really good questions. There were a few other questions around around policing. How do you link public space work to as a platform to other community development work and what I would say is check out the report. There's a lot of really good insights in there, and a lot of good insights from in particular from Tosh and Alexa. So with that, thanks again, and we will see you next month on post a host. Thank you. Thank you.