Afterword

Abstract

2. Duration matters. Oneoff projects with one site visit, a community charrette, or a few workshops fi t into a semester are but token participation compared to collaborations of ten years or so. Some of these present articles are so timebound that I am suspicious of claimed outcomes. We need evidence that the approaches grew more sophisticated as volunteers’ skills developed. The enduring cases recognize the importance of knowing the place intimately and developing personal relationships, especially in contentious settings. Shared experience, shared place, shared mission require ongoing facetoface interaction. The designer must be present. Otherwise, we reinforce Melvin Webber’s (1964) unfortunate diction that we desire “community without propinquity.” That claim haunted community designers in my youth, and superfi cial engagement with people and place undermines the basis of landscape architecture today.