A grassroots urban placemaking movement that started in Portland has made its way to Cleveland, and a few weeks ago, residents from three Cleveland neighborhoods came together to remove blight with community-led art.

City Repair, which started in Portland as a guerilla movement to add splashes of color to city streets, is so new here that the City of Cleveland denied a permit request at the last minute, forcing organizers to scramble to adapt their project. The original idea was to paint city intersections, and Cleveland officials now acknowledge that they need a new policy to deal with these requests.

In the end, City Repair Cleveland created three successful projects and built a greater sense of community in the process, says Adele DiMarco-Kious, consultant to the effort.

"This is about neighbors getting to know one another and taking shared action about things important to them in their neighborhood," she adds. "You get people to come together, take ownership of the public realm and start taking action and it has a multiplier effect. People build trust, take action and build a sense of power."

In Buckeye-Shaker Square, residents created a vision for a mural that they hope will be painted on a bridge over the RTA tracks that historically has divided their two neighborhoods; Clark-Fulton residents beautified the long-neglected Newark Court alley by painting a mural of the river that once ran through the community; and Stockyard residents covered up a blighted retaining wall with colorful designs.

DiMarco-Kious says the impact goes far beyond the physical projects themselves, as neighbors work shoulder-to-shoulder and families come out of their houses to help paint.

City Repair Cleveland was supported by Neighborhood Connections, a small grants and community building program affiliated with the Cleveland Foundation.

Source: Adele DiMarco-Kious
Writer: Lee Chilcote