Fostering Community Through Urban Kindness

Although I have worked with cities throughout my career and studied social science, the concept of kindness in the city didn’t really occur to me until I was 36 years old. Along with my 6-year-old daughter and my 3-year-old son, we attempted to cross the street against the red walk signal. My daughter cautioned that doing so would “mess it up for everyone else.” My son, muffled by a pacifier, enthusiastically nodded his agreement. My children’s basic understanding of the far-reaching consequences of our individual behaviors at such an early age revealed to me that kindness constitutes a way of being, a deliberate action. And it is vital in the environments we share.

As I continually hone my urban design practice, I’ve come to recognize that designing for kindness is a listening exercise; one of empathy for how different types of people in different situations experience and interpret surrounding signals. This awareness fosters a deeper understanding of our interconnectedness, an interdependence that is most vividly and powerfully manifested within urban environments. The city is the overlapping of divergent and personal lifestyles, habits, routines that we collectively experience: streets, parks, café seats, the air we breathe, and sweeping skyline views are things we share, but inhabit individually. The quintessence of urbanity is this shared co-experience.

I envision my work as a process of investigating, absorbing, and ultimately shaping these shared components. If the urban environment is genuinely a shared space, then listening and posing questions are as crucial as crafting and providing answers.

Observing urban kindness: recognizing the subtle signals of generosity in city life

As designers, we strive to uncover truths about what to build, plan, enact, and invest in by seeking consistency in patterns and outcomes. In our work with city leaders and studies of everyday citizens, we consistently observe kindness through physical traces and social interactions. Thoughtful storefront window displays, devoid of the need for protective shutters, signal kindness at best and an absence of fear at worst. When an able-bodied person gives up a seat on public transit, or when a simple apology is offered after bumping into someone — urban interactions abound with potential ‘micro-moments’ of generosity and forgiveness, expressed through smiles, nods or waves.

Is it necessary for one to consciously perceive these signals? We know that the colors, sounds, and smells of nature resonate with our DNA, and are proven to lower heart rates and blood pressure, regardless of conscious awareness. But we have only inhabited cities for around 10,000 years and aren’t yet wired to crave the signals of urban environments. Still, evolutionary social cues — of belonging, comfort, protection, delight and beauty — can still manifest themselves in modern physical and social cues. We believe we can design for moments that invite for kindness across environments.

Sensing kindness in public spaces

The beauty of kindness in urbanism resides, in part, within its complexity. Kindness, like many aspects of interpersonal relationships and the everyday beauty of human messiness, surfaces in a multitude of ways: it is kind to quietly listen to a friend in need, to confront a loved one with an honest critique, to say no to a child to protect them from potential harm. Kindness in cities, neighborhoods and places is the conversation between divergent perceptions, the tension between giver and recipient, and the dialogue between message and receiver.

In Saudi Arabia, for instance, kindness may manifest in designing for privacy, allowing families to enjoy public spaces without feeling overexposed.

In the UAE, kindness might emerge when grandparents feel welcomed in spaces where younger folk gather. In informal settlements like Barrio 31 in Buenos Aires, cleanliness or trash removal could represent kindness.

However, imposed cleanliness in these settlements might not feel kind, especially if it disrupts local rhythms and choices. Kindness can only thrive when trust exists between those designing and stewarding public spaces and those using them. Gehl’s ethnographic studies on Stanford’s campus reveal that manicured green lawns and precisely trimmed shrubs convey exclusivity and perpetuate an unwelcoming atmosphere for people of color. In contrast, more organic landscape structures, such as tall grasses, wildflowers, and unmanicured spaces, may signal disorganization and neglect in some Asian countries.

From kind to resilient in the climate era

Conflicting pressures — the need for safety, disaster protection, and necessary functional operations — stand in direct opposition to kind environments. Delivering basic services while still being kind to the very people dependent on them is part of the beautiful struggle of city making and city living. Coming out stronger is how I think about resilient cities in the Climate Era.

Achieving a kind city now will be about redefining and recalibrating the stereotypical definitions of citizenship, ‘neighborliness’, and leadership. This realignment requires an honest assessment of vulnerability and power where injustice and privilege are acknowledged. To be clear, urban kindness is not about the privileged saving the vulnerable with well-intentioned yet patronizing and extractive efforts any more than it is about expecting improvement without reciprocal effort or responsibility. Urban kindness is about more robust relationships, achieved through engagement with people who arrange their life differently and seeking to understand that difference.

I believe this repositioning of urban relations can and should be designed for. But creating kinder cities is not only the responsibility of leaders, planners, and designers. Cities are ultimately the product of all the people, all the decisions, all the actions and all the relationships that shape it. Crossing the street that day, my young children, still just fledgling urban dwellers, instinctively recognized the part they played.

As Kevin Kelly writes in Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I’d Known Earlier, “Whenever you have a choice to be right or kind, be kind. No exceptions. Don’t confuse kindness with weakness.” Let’s all give it a try.

This article was originally published by Jeff Risom on LinkedIn under the title: ‘Urban Kindness for Beginners.’