The City Repair Project is group of citizen activists creating public gathering places and helping others to creatively transform the places where they live.
City Repair’s projects:
inspire people to both understand themselves as part of a larger community and fulfill their own creative potential, and
activate people to be part of the communities around them, as well as part of the decision-making that shapes the future of their communities.
The many projects of City Repair have been accomplished by a mostly volunteer staff and the help of hundreds of volunteer citizen activists.
City Repair was formed in Portland, Oregon in 1996 by citizen activists who wanted a more community-oriented and ecologically sustainable society. Born out of a successful grassroots neighborhood initiative that converted a residential street intersection into a neighborhood public square, City Repair began its work with the idea that localization (of culture, of economy, of decision-making) is a necessary foundation of sustainability. By reclaiming urban spaces to create community-oriented places, we plant the seeds for greater neighborhood communication, empower our communities and nurture our local culture.
Operations
We are an almost entirely volunteer-run social-profit (non-profit) organization. Our projects include:
temporary and permanent placemaking installations,
community events,
educational presentations,
consultation and technical assistance,
community placemaking facilitation, and
the development of our own egalitarian community of activists and volunteers.
The City Repair Project maintains an office in Portland, operating with over 15 largely volunteer and part-time staff, coordinators, and assistants.
We facilitate artistic and ecologically-oriented placemaking through projects that honor the interconnection of human communities and the natural world.
We’re Portlanders and newcomers, students, professionals, laborers, cooks and bottle-washers. Check out People for a sampling of profiles of many others involved with City Repair.
Current Staff Members
Marc Kochanski, Volunteer Coordinator
Matt Phillips, Office Coordinator
Maralena Murphy, Bookkeeper
Marc de Giere, Technology Coordinator
Gary Marschke, Fundraising Co-Coordinator
Rebecca Pillsbury, Fundraising Co-Coordinator
Coordinator's Council
Includes some of the Board, staff, each project coordinator and other City Repair elders/activists. People you may see at Council meetings include:
Brush, Community Activist, Social Ecology Coordinator
Hindi Iserhott, Board member, City Riparian Coordinator, former Programs Coordinator
Arif Kahn, DePave Coordinator
Mark Lakeman, Village Building Convergence Coordinator, Co-Founder
Jenny Leis, Board member
Matt Phillips, Office Coordinator
Bruce Podobnik, Board member
Board of Directors
Hindi Iserhott, Board member and City Riparian coordinator
Mark Lakeman, Board member and City Repair co-founder
Jenny Leis, Interim President
Bruce Podobnik, Board member and Lewis and Clark Professor of Sociology