20 Questions with Mara Mintzer
Civic Design Center is celebrating our 20 Year Anniversary with 20 Questions from some fellow advocates and idols.
This is an image of Melody Gibson interviewing Mara Mintzer on Instagram Live
The following interview is an edited and distilled version of the live interview that was held on June 24, 2021 at 12:30 pm central. You can view the full 30 minute interview on IGTV.
“Sometimes when I talk to young people who are trying to figure out their careers, I want to give them hope by sharing that they may not have a name for the career they want. They may not even know what it looks like yet, but it’s important to keep testing out different things and observe what you like and don’t like.”
What city or town do you call home?
I live in Boulder, Colorado. It’s special to be able to help make the city where I live a better place. I'm raising my own child here, so it is meaningful to me. I like to think of our city as a test case, to test out different methods and different ways of listening to young people and seeing how they work.
What does health and wellness in communities mean to you?
To me, health and wellness in communities is so much larger than just physical health. I think this pandemic has shown that social and emotional health is crucial. If we live in a community that is healthy, it means it is taking care of people of all ages, and is really fostering interactions in ways that support human development.
What city, in your opinion, inspires good public health? Why is that? Lifestyle? Infrastructure? Access to something special?
A city that comes to mind is Manly, Australia. Manly was designed as an ideal child and youth friendly city. While living there, I could walk from my apartment to any basic services or things that I needed. If I wanted to get exercise or be in nature, that was walkable. I could also walk or bike to my daughter's school, and she could go there on her own without needing an adult to come with her. There were bike paths and walking paths the entire way. Cars were not an issue except at a few intersections, which had raised humps to slow them down. There was a pedestrian shopping area called the Corso that had a playground on it as well as pop up water jets. I would see young people playing there and teenagers hanging out there. There were lots of restaurants and stores, a pharmacy, and a supermarket. To me, that was idyllic.
What is your favorite public resource in that city? Tell us about it.
The pedestrian mall I was mentioning called the Corso, that really is my favorite. It had everything I needed. I love wildlife, and at certain times of year, you could see fruit bats hanging out in the giant trees. There were also parrots and cockatoos. But seeing people go by, a diversity of people including tourists and local residents, was also stimulating. As I was mentioning, my daughter who was ten when we lived there, would walk directly from her school, over to the Corso. So this was huge, because she couldn't do this in Colorado. I wish that for all children, it should not be a privilege. It is a basic human right for young people to be able to move around their city without being concerned about their physical safety. I feel very lucky to have seen what's possible.
Could you have imagined being in the profession you are today?
If someone had told me that I could create this job I would have thought it was amazing. But even now, it is hard to find a title for what I do, because it's at the intersection of civic engagement, urban planning, education, youth development, and early childhood public health. We made an image recently to show that Growing Up Boulder is in the intersection of all these places. I absolutely love what I do. Sometimes when I talk to young people who are trying to figure out their careers, I want to give them hope by sharing that they may not have a name for the career they want. They may not even know what it looks like yet, but it’s important to keep testing out different things and observe what you like and don't like. I get into a state of flow while working every day, and I realize that is a privilege.
What was your childhood dream job?
I was one of those kids who looked at all the lists teachers would give you that included firefighter, teacher, doctor, plumber. And I thought, none of these really apply to me. It was frustrating to feel boxed into so few possibilities. If I had someone who said to me, ‘what are your values? What do you really care about in the world? And how do you want to be in the world?’ I would have learned that social justice is what mattered to me. Chipping away at inequities in the world is what motivates me personally and professionally.
If a 7th grader came to you and said, “I want to do exactly what you do”, what would you say?
I would say, you don't have to wait until you're an adult to do what I'm doing, you should actually be doing it now. Seventh graders are the ones who this work is all about. Young people already know what matters to them, they have important lived experience. I would also say you don't have to wait until you're an adult to participate in civic planning. You are a resident, you're living in a community and your experience has value. Our goal is to connect young people with adult decision makers and make sure they are heard. That's the scaffolding and the structure we institute to help kids think about what is of interest to them. It’s our responsibility to get adults to take kids seriously in order to show their voices matter.
There's an area in our town called the Diagonal Plaza, and it's been falling apart for years. All the stores are going out of business. It's sort of urban blight. But 11 years ago, we worked with kids on what their vision would be for redeveloping that area. So now there's a design plan being brought before the city council and the planning board. I went and sent them work the kids had done 10 years ago and said, these kids are grown up, but I want to make sure that they aren't forgotten. So, again, it's working across the agents as allies to carry things forward.
How are you best able to make a difference in the world with your career? Tell us about it!
A project of ours that is most visible is our downtown civic area project. What's exciting now that it's 2021, is you can see the end results of the kids’ input much more, because it's really developed. We worked with 225 kids from ages 3 through 16, and got their input over a few years on a downtown park area that is prone to flooding and has safety issues.
What we found was the designers implemented a number of the kids' ideas. For instance, there's nature play with water features, and leaves and trees that kids can hide in and play. With the creek that runs through the area, they'd asked for safer entry into it, so they carved out spots that are safer. They also separated biking and walking paths, because the kids said that they felt like they were going to get hit by bikes when they were walking. They also restored nature, which is bringing back native plants and animals. You can also see butterflies around the newly planted flowers, which is something kids have requested.
What are the benefits of including young people’s perspectives in city planning?
There are so many benefits of working with and hearing from young people and then acting upon their ideas. We’ve found them to be more inclusive in their designs than adults. We work with kids as young as two years old, all the way up through high school. They are thinking about their grandparents who are bringing them to the park. They're thinking about their cousins and siblings of different ages. They think about kids who have disabilities, and how they are going to be experiencing space and using space. And people who may not have cars and people who don't have a lot of money to spend in areas because kids often don't have a lot of money to spend. And so they design very inclusively.
To give an example, you have a kid saying, I would like a smooth sidewalk with a ramp that helps my mom who's pushing the stroller, and also helps my grandma who is in a wheelchair, and then helps me because I'm on a skateboard. It's working for all different ages. Kids are also incredibly creative. We find that they come up with design solutions that are colorful and filled with nature. They integrate nature, whether it's animals, plants, or water features, into where they are. So I want to live in a space designed by young people.
What advice would you give cities on how to incorporate youth perspective in city planning?
The first thing is to start small by choosing a sample project that you want community engagement for. I have heard that when people look at the Growing Up Boulder model they sometimes can find it overwhelming. We often have 20 organizations coming to a steering committee meeting, and we work with something like 300 or 400 kids a year. But we didn't start out like that. We started out very small and worked on one or two projects. So I would say start that way, and then find allies from different fields that you need to work in.
One group of allies is young people. We found it beneficial to partner with an existing group of young people. So whether that's in a school classroom and you find a teacher who loves project based or place based learning, or an after school program, find a champion there. And then find a champion in your city who believes in this idea and knows that you may have to knock on a few doors to find your champions. But don't give up if you don't find the right fit right away. So much of what we've learned is by trial and error.
What has been your favorite speaking engagement?
I think my TEDx talk has had the biggest ripple effects in a really wonderful way, because it was picked up by TED and it was put on their homepage. When it went on the TED page, it went viral. And it's now been viewed more than 2.3 million times, and translated into 21 languages. So the result of that is that I get letters frequently from cities and kids around the world saying, we used your TEDx talk to be able to spur a conversation about this in our own community. I collect all the stories, and I'll often talk with the young people to try and give them a little bit of support. And it's just, it's so exciting. And it's from all the continents. It's all around. It's super exciting.
Who is the most inspiring or influential person you’ve ever met?
One of the most inspiring people I've ever met is one of the founders of Growing Up Boulder. Her name is Darcy Rupert. She is 94 years old right now, and she really helped us get Growing Up Boulder underway. She is a former state senator and state congresswoman, but before that she was a guidance counselor in high schools, and she's lived in Boulder for over 60 years. She made so many important pieces of legislation. It's incredible. But when I was really thinking about the answer to this question, I thought of who do I want to meet? And who I wish could meet and tell about child friendly cities is Michelle Obama. I think child friendly cities are the way we need to go. UNICEF is now working on it. And yeah, there are a lot of really amazing people out there.
What do you think is going to be the most powerful change from 2020 to 2021?
In my field, we've known for a long time how important it was for kids to be out in nature. And for actually, their education to happen in nature, not just within the four walls of a school classroom. Due to the pandemic, many more schools took their classrooms outside because it was healthier and safer to be outside. And what we're finding is that this is sticking. We just did a project where we got fourth graders input on how they wish to engage with nature. What the evaluations from the kids showed was, they want to be learning out there. So I think there's now a greater sort of embodied awareness of the benefits of spending time outdoors for all ages.
What brings you hope?
Working with the kids always, always brings me hope.
What is one place you would like to visit that you have never been to?
I’d like to visit Regensburg, Germany, because I met a colleague in the child friendly cities world who runs their child friendly city initiative. And it seems incredible. And I want to see it in action.