The City Repair Project is a

501(c)(3) A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of the 29 types of 50 ...

non-profit organization based in

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

. Its focus is education and activism for community building. The organizational motto is "The City Repair Project is group of citizen activists creating public gathering places and helping others to creatively transform the places where they live."

Structure

City Repair is an organization primarily run by volunteers. A board of directors oversees the project's long-term vision, and a council maintains its daily operations. Both the board of directors and council meet monthly. City Repair's work focuses on localization and placemaking. The City Repair Project maintains an office in Portland.

History

The City Repair Project was founded in 1996 by a small group of neighbors interested in

sustainability Specific definitions of sustainability are difficult to agree on and have varied in the literature and over time. The concept of sustainability can be used to guide decisions at the global, national, and individual levels (e.g. sustainable livi ...

and neighborhood activism. The first City Repair action was an intersection repair at Share-It Square at SE 9th Ave and SE Sherrett Street. An intersection repair is a place where two streets crossed that is painted by the members of that neighborhood. The street is closed down during the painting. The first intersection repair that happened was at Share-it Square. Other intersection repairs include Sunnyside Piazza.

Annual events

City Repair hosts two events annually, Portland's

Earth Day Earth Day is an annual event on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. First held on April 22, 1970, it now includes a wide range of events coordinated globally by EarthDay.org (formerly Earth Day Network) including 1 b ...

celebration and the Village Building Convergence. Past projects include the T-Horse, a small pick-up truck converted into a mobile tea house. The T-Horse was driven to neighborhood sites and events around Portland and served free chai and pie. The organization has inspired groups around the United States to start their own City Repair Projects. Unaffiliated City Repairs exist in California, Washington, Minnesota, and other places. The Village Building Convergence (VBC) is an annual 10-day event held every May in

, United States. The event is coordinated by the City Repair Project and consists of a series of workshops incorporating

natural building A natural building involves a range of building systems and materials that place major emphasis on sustainability. Ways of achieving sustainability through natural building focus on durability and the use of minimally processed, plentiful or renew ...

and

permaculture Permaculture is an approach to land management and settlement design that adopts arrangements observed in flourishing natural ecosystems. It includes a set of design principles derived using whole-systems thinking. It applies these principle ...

design at multiple sites around the city. Many of the workshops center on "intersection repairs" which aim to transform street intersections into public gathering spaces.

Background

In 1996, neighbors in the Sellwood neighborhood of Portland at the intersection of 8th and Sherrett created a tea stand, children's playhouse and community library on the corner and renamed it "Share-It Square". Community organizers founded the City Repair Project that same year, seeking to share their vision with the community. In January 2000, the Portland City Council passed ordinance #172207, an "Intersection Repair" ordinance, allowing neighborhoods to develop public gathering places in certain street intersections.

Sites

The first Village Building Convergence took place in May 2002, then called the Natural Building Convergence. During its history, the VBC has coordinated the creation of over 72 natural building and permaculture sites in Portland, including information kiosks, painted intersections, cob benches, and a

strawbale house Straw-bale construction is a building method that uses bales of straw (commonly wheat, rice, rye and oats straw) as structural elements, building insulation, or both. This construction method is commonly used in natural building or "brown" con ...

Dignity Village Dignity Village is a city-recognized legal encampment of an estimated 60 homeless people in Portland, Oregon, United States. In the days before Christmas of 2000, a group of individuals living outdoors in Portland established a tent city. It evo ...

. The sites are primarily located in the southeast quadrant of Portland. Natural builders from around the world have coordinated the activities at many of the construction sites at the Village Building Convergence. Most of the labor taking place at the sites is done by volunteers.

Workshops

The VBC hosts a series of workshops, many of which are free to the public. Topics of the workshops are usually related to

and

. Past workshops have included aikido lessons, outdoor mushroom cultivation, bioswale creation, and nonviolent communication.

Speakers

The VBC also hosts speakers and entertainment during the evenings of its convergences. Presentations for the 2007 convergence were made at

Disjecta Oregon Center for Contemporary Art (also known as Oregon Contemporary, formerly Disjecta) is an art center in Portland, Oregon. It is home to the Portland Biennial since 2010, continuing in the tradition of the Portland Art Museum's ended Oregon Bie ...

by Starhawk, Michael Lerner, and Paul Stamets.Ideology, action converge and prosper, Rebecca Ragain
,

Portland Tribune The ''Portland Tribune'' is a weekly newspaper published every Wednesday in Portland, Oregon, United States. It is part of the Pamplin Media Group, which publishes a number of community newspapers in the Portland metropolitan area. Launched in ...

Prior years' presentations have been given by

Malik Rahim Malik Rahim (born Donald Guyton in 1948) is an American housing and prison activist based since the late 1990s in the New Orleans area of Louisiana, where he grew up. In 2005 Rahim gained national publicity as a community organizer in New Orlean ...

Toby Hemenway Toby Hemenway (April 23, 1952 – December 20, 2016) was an American author and educator who wrote extensively on permaculture and ecological issues. He was the author of ''Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture'' and ''The Permacultur ...

, and Judy Bluehorse.

References

External links

City Repair website
{{Authority control Organizations based in Portland, Oregon Non-profit organizations based in Oregon Civic organizations in Oregon 1996 establishments in Oregon Organizations established in 1996 501(c)(3) organizations