Future Cities Begins!
Written by Ziyun
Today was the first day of the Future Cities program, and we went around introducing ourselves. We went around in a circle explaining what borough we came from and our motivations for joining this program. We have almost one person from every borough (yay!!)
Next we began to discuss our community agreements. Here are a few we came up with:
- Disagree with the idea, not the person
- Give people space when they need it
- Always be respectful of others’ needs
- Be mindful of the space you take up
- Have fun! Try new things.
We moved on to lunch (chicken tenders and tater tots! yummm)
After lunch we got ready for our next activity: we were given a clipboard with a list of descriptive locations (i.e. a place you would want to work, a place with health food) and we were tasked with splitting into two groups to walk around the neighborhood and find locations that matched the descriptions.
After we came back, we shared some interesting things we learned about – such as hostile architecture. We learned that hostile architecture is a type of design that makes things in public space hostile for certain groups of people who may need to use public space more than others – like youth or homeless people. And finally, we received our MetroCards, as well as a tote bag and left for the day!