NEIGHBORHOOD POSTCARDS
The project seeks to strengthen communities by attacking stigma and urban stereotypes through the delivery of postcards handwritten by neighbors exulting the positive aspects of their neighborhoods.
The Neighborhood Postcards project came about through an international collaboration between Ciudad Emergente and The Neighborhood Postcard Project – the latter being an initiative led by the urbanist Hunter Franks of San Francisco, California.
Neighborhood Postcards was first implemented in Chile during the Plan CREO Antofagasta as one of the urban tactics deployed in the Centro Alto and Centro Norte part of the city on the 21st and 28th of March in 2014. It was incorporated as part of a community celebration after the participatory cleaning of two illegal dumpsites and micro-landfills in the neighborhood that involved over 300 volunteers. The cleared areas are now being converted into clean and connected public spaces through the empowerment and participation of locals.
During the activation tactic we collected around 50 postcards written by the residents, giving reasons for why they love their neighborhoods. These same postcards will be sent by mail at random to different people of the city, with the hope of changing the perceptions and stereotypes built in the collective imagination.
The Neighborhood Postcards project has been implemented in neighborhoods of cities like New York, San Francisco and Washington DC, and, thanks to this partnership we were able to implement it for the first time in Latin America in the city of Antofagasta, in the Centro Norte and Centro Alto neighborhoods of the city.
If you live in Antofagasta, watch out! You could receive a Neighborhood Postcard!