ZEITGEIST COMMUNITY
What’s in a street, a neighborhood, a transportation network? Who makes decisions and who lives the outcomes? Historically in our country, decisions about health, transportation, and street design have happened to communities rather than with them.
Zeitgeist’s Community Development team takes an equitable and inclusive approach to the work we do. Across the community, we are not just partnering with neighbors and organizations but intimately collaborating with them to envision and activate a healthy and thriving shared future.
WHAT WE DO
We focus on Transforming Transportation by uncovering cultural, structural, and infrastructural barriers in the Twin Ports to having a fully inclusive, safe, and connected transportation network that provides people of all ages and abilities with mobility choices and connects them to vital resources.
Healthy Hillside builds grassroots community leadership in the Hillside neighborhood, delivers health resources to enhance wellbeing, and is convening a community-led health vision to break down existing disparities.
Safer 6th Avenue East applies the transportation work and neighborhood vision to reimagine this harmful street as a great place of connection that prioritizes the people who live there; a once-in-a-generation opportunity to shape the place we call home.
OUR APPROACH
Because art and community are central to all that we do, we’re able to facilitate change from the ground up with neighbors creatively deciding what they’d like to see and leveraging their power to build great places where they can thrive. We center Seven Core Components to our Community Change:
CREATIVITY
Using the power of self-expression and the arts to reveal new possibilities.
CURIOSITY
Listening with open ears and hearts to people’s truths and lived expertise.
JOY
Creating space for celebration, humor, and social connection.
DIGNITY
Honoring people’s inherent worth and potential for greatness.
UNDERSTANDING
Arriving at a deeper knowing of challenges and opportunities.
COLLABORATION
Working hand-in-hand to design solutions with and for those most impacted.
INTENTION
Healing places of historic harm by building trust and working iteratively.
