"Imagine Waterbury: Creative Community Building by Foot” Jane’s Walk

WATERBURY, CONN., TO PARTICIPATE IN NATIONAL WALKING EVENT CELEBRATING NEIGHBORHOODS THIS WEEKEND

The public is invited to participate in a walking tour of a Waterbury, Conn., neighborhood as part of the national Jane’s Walk events that celebrate the life and work of urbanist and activist Jane Jacobs.

The “Imagine Waterbury: Creative Community Building by Foot” Jane’s Walk will be held Sunday, May 8, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. The approximately two-mile walk will begin and end at Chase Park on Highland Ave. in Waterbury. There is plenty of free parking. Everyone, from Waterbury and beyond, is welcome to participate. For information, contact Steve Dahlberg, steven.dahlberg@uconn.edu. Find more about Jane’s Walk at www.janeswalkusa.org.

Like all Jane’s Walks, participants are invited to walk, observe and connect. The Waterbury route asks walkers to consider what elements inspire creativity in the city and how might citizens’ imagination and ideas create the community in which we want to live, work and play. Through exploring one section of Waterbury, walkers will look at street-level, neighborhood examples of what has been, what is and what might be for creative community building in Waterbury. This “Jane’s Walk” is organized by intergenerational students completing the “Creativity + Social Change” course at the University of Connecticut this week. Students come from the Center for Continuing Studies and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.

Jane’s Walk is a series of free, neighborhood walking tours that help people get in touch with their environment and with each other. Jane’s Walk helps citizens to celebrate their communities and to discover themselves. All Jane’s Walks are given and taken for free, with the main Jane’s Walk event held on the first weekend of May, to coincide with Jane Jacobs’ birthday.

In her book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jacobs wrote: “Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.” And: “ … lively, diverse, intense cities contain the seeds of their own regeneration, with energy enough to carry over for problems and needs outside themselves.”

Who should participate in the Jane’s Walk Waterbury? Anyone who:

• Enjoys getting to know his/her city and neighbors.
• Wants to participate in meaningful conversations about the social and built futures of his/her neighborhoods.
• Is engaged in the work of building cohesive communities and improving the walking environment.
• Wants to change his/her cities and neighborhoods.