Want to participate in meaningful conversations about the social and built future of downtown Chapel Hill?

Simply want to get an insiders perspective of our downtown?

Join your fellow community members for a series of “Dream Up Downtown” walks meant to encourage discussion about and exploration of downtown Chapel Hill; all based on the principles of urban activist Jane Jacobs.

The remaining walks in the series, which began last month, will take place on the first Thursday of the months of October, November, and December – tomorrow, Nov. 1, and Dec. 6.

All the walks will begin at University Baptist Church's Memorial Garden at the corner of Franklin and Columbia streets (100 S. Columbia St.) at 6 p.m.. Each will follow a different path through downtown. Themes of the walks include Paving our Pathways, Inspiring Innovative Spaces, One-Stop Living, and Culinary Cultural Richness. All walks are free and open to all.

These are not guided tours! Regarded as “moving conversations,” each walk will explore unique aspects of our downtown through an urban planning perspective meant to foster connections with space and others.

The walks are themed to encourage people to embrace the downtown's strengths, while also dreaming up ways our downtown could have more of what we desire like diversity, mixed-use, and density. Each walk will be led by fellow community members. Walk leaders include Nathan Huening, Molly Demarco, Jared Cates, and Crystal Fisher.

Jane Jacobs was an urban activist who lived from 1916 to 2006. She introduced groundbreaking ideas about how cities function, evolve and fail by writing about parks, buildings, residences, and self-organization. Jacobs advocated higher density in cities, short blocks, mixed-use zoning, and meaningful open spaces for public use – all of which will be explored in “Dream Up Downtown.”

A firm believer in the importance of local residents having input on how their neighborhoods develop, Jacobs encouraged people to familiarize themselves with their cities. It was in the spirit of Jacobs' ideals that community volunteers joined with the Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership to dream up these walks!

The Dream Up Downtown walks are part of nationwide program through the Center for the Living City, a nonprofit that celebrates the influential ideas of Jacobs by helping communities organize walks to educate citizens on their communities. These walks have taken place in cities across the U.S., including Denver, Austin, New York, Austin, Philadelphia and Charlotte.

For more information visit bit.ly/OI8E09 or contact me at 919-967-9440 or meg@downtownchapelhill.com.