Spiral Bound Journal

You're Giving Me Ideas

Stephanie glanced around the main meeting space at St. Andrew's Church. Unlike many churches in the city, this one occupied what was meant to be two retail spaces on the first floor of an apartment building near the university. The space tended to be used more for neighborhood meetings, but now it had to make do for a gathering focused on issues that impacted parts of the ward beyond the neighborhood. With 15 minutes before the meeting was set to start, she wondered if there would be enough room for anyone else. The crowd gathered so far resembled something more akin to a public safety forum and not something as straightforward as a public works project. Then again, Stephanie had heard from a few different sources that street reconstruction projects were getting more attention from everyday citizens. Her role in this meeting was more observational and logistics-oriented, but she still prepared to step into an advocacy role as needed. Whether that would be for the older or younger residents of her ward remained to be seen.

Once the Public Works project manager started the meeting, Stephanie took a moment to assess the turnout. A few college aged attendees stood against the back wall on the account of no chairs being available. Close to half the audience appeared to be over sixty, with the next largest group being in the under 30 range. Stephanie found it odd to not see all that many people who were between those two groups, although she had been warned of this by Felicia a couple months ago. Felicia had mentioned how rare it was to be the missing middle in many debates due to timing and how she felt that the demands of American parenting were detrimental to many democratic processes. At first, Stephanie thought this was an odd take. As she listened to the heated exchanges between old and young, though, she started to wonder if her friend may have been onto something. After all, the older participants showed an extreme reluctance to let go of on-street parking while the younger contingent pushed very hard (almost too hard) for said parking to be eliminated altogether without suggesting any alternatives. Likewise, Stephanie noticed the older group pushing to keep the sidewalks and bike lanes separated while the youth wanted the bike lines removed from the road surface, a move that would mean narrower roads.

After the talk, Stephanie watched as everyone grabbed puffy craft balls from baskets stationed in the back of the meeting hall. People stepped up and took a few balls to drop in a line of jars labeled with different desired features. This had been a revolutionary idea just a few years before, but by the mid-2020s this had become standard practice at neighborhood public works meetings. The neck and neck levels in the jars for on-street parking and wider bike lanes were about what Stephanie expected. To her surprise, the jar representing new retention ditches in the boulevards almost overflowed. She took out her iPhone and snapped photos of both the last few people dropping in their puffy votes and unobstructed views of what could be considered the final tally.

Once the meeting ended, Stephanie joined the public works team. Along with the manager, public works sent an engineer and a project coordinator. Stephanie knew the engineer (a woman who had worked on two other city street reconstruction efforts), but the coordinator looked new. This woman appeared to be almost fresh out of college. She stepped over to introduce herself.

"Hi," she said. "I don't think we've met."

The coordinator shook her head. "I just started a month and a half ago."

"That certainly explains why I haven't seen you around."

"Yeah, this is the first time I've actually been out of the office."

"I'm Stephanie Powers, by the way."

"Mona Ross. Nice to meet you."

They shook hands before continuing.

"How are you liking working for the city so far?"

"This meeting was a lot more difficult than I anticipated," Mona told her. "I haven't sat in on all the meetings, but I've been in some of them. Hearing them explain the first presented concept, I was really on board with it. To see the neighborhood feedback here was honestly a big shock."

Stephanie nodded. "It is, and I wish there was more diversity in who showed up. At least this time a good number of younger people were in attendance."

"Yeah, that was the one upside. They seemed more supportive of some of the features not focused on cars. I wish the older people would see that."

"And some do, but sadly not enough. I do think that there are a good number that won't change their minds no matter what, but you still have to put the idea out there."

"I supposed, but it's still really hard."

"Mm-hmmm. I hear that, but as a friend of mine once told me, we have to socialize ideas in order to get the change we want. We have to do it early, and we have to do it often."

Mona's eyebrows arched. "Socialize ideas? What do you mean?"

"It means get the ideas out in the public," Stephanie said as she spread her hands out. "You have to campaign for an idea even if the odds of you getting what you want right away are slim to none. I recall my friend talking about how the riot's impacts were not discussed in town, and she felt like she could not start that conversation. Instead, she'd have conversations with a few people at community events, stopping at the booths and what not, so she could raise the point and hope that one of the people she spoke with would take the next steps."

"Did that work?"

"Not at first, but people are starting to talk about it, at least in more intimate circles and spaces. I know that Blacks in North Minneapolis talked about it more easily than Blacks closer to Midtown and Seward. And even some of the more moneyed enclaves have apparently started small support groups to confront post-riot trauma. It's not a thing talked openly in very public ways, but it is happening."

"Does your friend know about it?"

Stephanie nodded. "She's found that as more people talk about it, the easier it is for her to run her activist circle round tables. It's still stressful for her, though."

"I've heard about those. Do you think those table are helpful."

"It's still a bit early to say, but I do think it's helping at least the different Black subgroups talk to each other a bit better. Ironic that it took someone who's not Black to point out the gap. Then again, I suppose it's easy to see those sorts of things when you're outside of literally every group."

"Huh."

"I mean, there's definitely still pain points when it comes to socializing new ideas or even just aligning priorities to rebuild a road. Ultimately, we still need roads. It's something that will exist even if we completely abandon cars. But we have a ways to go before that point is reached."

"I suppose that's true. It just feels like we don't have any time."

"And we don't, but sometimes you just have to accept that you're stuck with the consequences of someone else's actions, and you have to adjust accordingly. Life is never fully fair. We just have to work as much as we can to get even a bit more fairness and equity to make weathering these changes a little easier."

"Maybe. I...I think I'll need to think about that some more."

"Understood. Do you know if the team needs help with breakdown?"

Mona shrugged. "Let's ask the project manager. I'm sure something will need extra hands to get tidied up."

With that, the women set off in search of the project manager.