Jane’s Walk is a global movement

March 2, 2014 in Co-creation, complex adaptive systems, design for health, Re-imagining
Tags: Jane Jacobs, Jane's Walk

This weekend I attended a planning session organized by the folks at Jane’s Walk Toronto, where I picked up these buttons.

WalkShop: Health and the City took place at the bustling Centre for Social Innovation Annex (below).

After participating in several Jane’s Walks over the years (one of which is posted here) I decided to create a walk for the upcoming May 2-4 event.

My proposed “walking conversation” will be around the question, “How healthy is this place?” We will gather at the corner of Bloor St West and University, then proceed west toward Bathurst St. Together we’ll analyze therapeutic visual elements such as vitality, variety, nature, legacy and cultural connections. I hope to raise awareness for visual health through questions and bits of research regarding brain health in the city.

Here is a 15-second video that highlights my question.

My Jane’s Walk idea stems from having created this video: “Salutogenic Places,” as well as years of leading facilitated Critical Eye (visual literacy) sessions.

These walks began in Toronto in 2007 as a tribute to the memory of urban activist Jane Jacobs. Now a global movement, they have spread to 85 cities in 19 countries. Several aspects of Jane’s Walk keep her spirit of neighbourhood awareness and advocacy alive:

• an informal, hands on, social way to explore and analyze elements that make places livable
• builds on shared, first-hand knowledge rather than experts and theory
• largely self-organized and globally contagious requiring a minimum amount of promotion

And lest we forget, World Labyrinth Day is May 3 with a corresponding Jane’s Walk.

– Sharon VanderKaay