The socially organized public consultations of the reconstruction of Racławickie Avenue

The first real application of the principals of ‘cities for people’ as part of the Year of Jan Gehl during the consultations of of the project of reconstruction of Racławickie Avenue, organized by Council of Wieniawa District. The blueprints had been processed to make them ‘human oriented’ (in this case to make them easily readable) by Krzysztof Jaraszkiewicz.

Formally the consultations had been organized by the Council of Wieniawa District, but behind this initative stands a group of enthusiasts from the Council and Forum for Culture of Space, the Cycling Agreement, Lublin Developement Forum, student Radio Centrum etc.

The specialized blueprints received from the Management of Roads and Bridges in PDF format had been adapted to be readable by laymen – the participants of the consultations. Otherwise they would be completely incomperhensible. The printing of the plans, choice of places they were hanged and the meeting spots, including the site inspection called ‘Let’s se Sowińskiego Street’ – are all bottom-up operations. This is the way The head of the Council of Wieniawa District Marta Kurowska understands ‘human-oriented plainning’. Thanks to her Wieniawa is a leader in Lublin in this approach, as it can be seen by visting the website of Czechówka + Wieniawa. Unfortunately, this means that another district in the same situation would not take up a similar challenge. But let’s hope these experiences will become a part of the ‘institutional memory’ of the city and will serve as a model for future consultations.

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