People Organizing Place (POP)
People Organizing Place [POP] is the participatory city shaping division of [bc]. In collaboration with designers, professionals, nonprofits, and citizen groups, POP positions local stakeholders as experts to proactively shape their neighborhood’s future. This is achieved by providing accessible tools through which citizens can independently design their city and by leveraging the professional expertise of [bc] to implement these tools as part of larger city shaping projects.
POP has two types of projects:
TOOLKIT: a suite of proven tools neighbors can use independently or with [bc] to shape and organize places that are important to them.
CITY DESIGN: [bc] works with neighbors on projects to utilize existing tools and develop new ones to achieve a set place based goal. These projects can take the form of research, design, and planning, and incorporate multiple POP tools in their execution.
View individual projects:
Neighborhood Stories
Race and the Control of Public Parks
Pop City Map
Toolkit + Labs
Take Reading Public
Activating Vacancy
Little Free Libraries
UPDATES (General)
POP Project Guides
December 21, 2015
Ever thought about doing an oral history project in your neighborhood? Want to learn more about why we think Little Free Libraries / Libros Libres is one of [bc]’s most important neighborhood planning tools? Check out the first two buildingcommunityWORKSHOP Project Guides, a series of short publications that describe the what, how, and why of our People Organizing Place projects, including Little Free Libraries / Libros Libres and Neighborhood Stories. These guides are resources used internally within the office, shared with partner organizations and the public, and provided to folks interested in doing similar projects in their own neighborhoods. Take a look and let us know what you think!
Avance Little Free Library / Libros Libres
POP at the DHL Boot Camp!
September 3, 2015
Two weeks ago, as part of our year long POP Neighborhood Map engagement process, [bc] participated in the annual Dallas Homeowners League (DHL) Boot Camp. This years DHL gathering, titled "Return of the City", brought together neighborhood leaders from across Dallas for a day of discussions and best-practice sharing. Neighborhood issues such as smart water usage and navigating the procedures of Dallas City Hall were covered in break-out sessions throughout the day. [bc] shared information about its numerous POP neighborhood tools, including Neighborhood Stories and Little Free Libraries, as well as publicly presented “Know Your Neighborhood” and “Draw Your Neighborhood” for the first time. We spoke with a lot of folks about the project and the history of the map - we even got to map a neighborhood, Bruton Terrace, that we’d never mapped before! Over the next 12 months we’ll be out at all kinds of neighborhood events, talking to people about their neighborhood and asking them to draw their boundaries - if you see us, come say "Hi"! And if you’re organizing a neighborhood event, let us know, we’d love to bring our map out and do some drawing with you.
Folks participating in the 2015 Dallas Homeowners League Boot Camp at Dallas City Hall. Image courtesy of Dallas Homeowners League.