Mesa Urban Garden
As a part of RAIL's community engagement strategy, we set up a series of Pláticas (Community Conversations) and Walking Audits in the Distrito Latine in Mesa, and the La Victoria neighborhood in Tempe. The goal and format of the Pláticas are very simple - to bring people together in their neighborhood and have conversations about the existing opportunities and challenges that they may be facing. We use this gathering as an opportunity to build relationships and make connections, in order to identify community leaders that already exist in each of these neighborhoods.
The week after the Platicas in each neighborhood, we organized a “Walking Audit” in the neighborhood. We invited everyone who attended the Platica and other residents to walk around their neighborhood with us and identify the physical aspects of the neighborhood that they love as well as the challenges and aspects that can be improved.
Throughout the walk, people take pictures of those opportunities and challenges so that we can record them and put them into a report for later use. The report was then presented to the participants in the neighborhood and other residents who were not able to attend previous engagements so they can discuss and decide on small projects that can be “Prototyped” in the neighborhood. These reports are often presented to city officials so they know what types of improvements are being asked for by the people who live in the neighborhood.