I heard Dougald speak yesterday on the “why don’t you…?” web, the web (immediately recognisable to UK readers of a certain age) that enables us to “turn off the tv set and go and do something less boring instead”.
I then saw someone on twitter point to Guerilla Gardening, a site that facilitates small groups going out and making urban spaces more green, leafy, flowery or otherwise lovely.
And then this morning when I got some cash out, I noticed how bloody filthy this cash machine in Cockspur Street is. And I wondered if anyone would want to do some off-the-cuff street cleaning – the nightmare is that you’d probably be arrested immediately with tampering with a cash machine, no matter how much you protested that you were performing a secret civic service. But might it have legs (particularly for urban dwellers) are there things you could clean without getting into trouble, especially if there were a group of you and are there lessons buried in the Guerilla Gardening site that might help it happen?
Implementation is left as an exercise for the reader.
I do guerilla maintenance arount my town. So far it has been restricted to the removal of fly posters (19 so far), cutting back a tree causing damage to a public wall and covering up grafitti. Unfortunately my local council has cut back on staffing levels and prioritise their manpower elsewhere. As a result the town looks shabby at times. It’s done in the dark of night, so that’s why people refer to me as ‘The Phantom’.
Thanks Scott, that’s good to hear about, you reminded me that this was in my head 4 years ago! Have you seen #wewillgather it’s a site for people to find others in their community who might like to do this kind of stuff. I’m taking part in one in London on 2nd Feb: http://www.wewillgather.co.uk/p/788