Getting to know your neighbourhood

Buildings, infrastructure, vistas, streets, rivers, green spaces – these define our neighbourhoods and are the legacies of our recent and distant past. They were created by people with myriad concerns, cultures, curiosities, politics and interests – the way they lived, worked and played also shaped our contemporary neighbourhoods.

We’ve all spent a lot of time walking or riding in our neighbourhoods recently – 5km, 1.5 metres, masked - and there’s been an awful lot written about that experience.

We’d like to add one more piece of writing, one more idea, one more experience, to whatever our collective post-Covid normal becomes. That of really getting to know your ‘hood in the way you get to know your parents and grandparents – occasionally asking questions, sometimes ignoring their stories sometimes paying attention, picking the bits that interest you and dismissing those that don’t, wondering about the differences, amazed at the similarities.

The more you know your place, with its legacies, stories, life and energy from people who shaped it long before you arrived, the more it will bestow its own generous and multi-layered perspectives onto your contemporary life without you needing to read a history book or go to a museum.

What we’re suggesting is another form of placemaking. One that begins with wellbeing as we continue to walk, ride and enjoy our neighbourhoods, adds large dollops of curiosity, builds familiarity and comfort, and results in a strong sense of place and belonging.

We hope you’ll read more about our suggestion and how we believe it can be achieved here and get in touch - we’d love to talk, and walk, with local government, place makers, precinct managers, historians and community stakeholders.