Reimagine Your Neighborhood - Jeffery Tompkins
Fresh out of the recording studio: Episode 22 of the Livable City podcast.
Subscribe to the podcast using one of the above podcast hosts.
As they say, a picture is worth 1000 words. And when something in your neighborhood or your city has been a certain way for decades or even hundreds of years, it’s easy to forget that a physical place or the places where neighbors come together to know one another can, in fact, change for the better.
But this is exactly the power of reimagining what a place could be like using basic and more advanced imagery and renderings. Also, it turns out places shape us as people either positively or negatively.
Sometimes certain neighbors don’t want things to change simply because they can’t envision it being any better and they’ve lost hope. For many places, we’ve internalized and expect that new buildings and new public places are just going to be worse than what’s there now.
So we accept what is based in fear and not understanding each other rather than learning how to hold generous, co-creating conversations together.
But my guest today Jeffery Tompkins will talk about and show you, it doesn’t have to be this way. In fact, many of us get very excited when we see a photorealistic image of something new that’s coming. Whether that’s the latest smartphone model, a shiny new building’s inspiring architecture, or even a new cozy place to sit along your favorite cafe filling up what used to be a parking space for one car, we connect with this kind of vision casting in an emotional way. And positive emotion is a powerful catalyst for change.
In this episode, Jeffery will also begin teaching you how to create these graphical visions so that you can try your hand at it. Getting started is really easy and Jeffery has written a Getting Started Tutorial. And these will be powerful tools in our community conversations to reimagine our neighborhoods into more human, more livable places.
Jeffery has agreed to do a series of these as well, increasingly getting more advanced in tooling but always trying to keep it accessible. So check back on the Livable City website for other tutorials.
Check out Jeffery’s Intro Reimagining Tutorial at the bottom of his episode page.
Jeffery is a student in architecture at Ball State University with a minor in urban design.
Follow Jeffery on Twitter and on Instagram
Brought to you by SquadCast and post-production by Creekmore Music.
How to Meet the Community
Join the community conversation by joining the Livable City Slack Group. You’ll meet other members leading and helping their cities become more livable.
Also join our weekly live meetup called Gather on the Plaza. We meet every Sunday at 5 PM CDT (10 PM UTC). Find out more on the events page for the latest announcement.
Even More Livable City
Remember to follow Livable City on Twitter and Instagram and also check out the Livable City website for even more content to help you lead your city or town into a more livable version.
Cheers,
Jim