Communities like Rio Rancho, the isolated suburban maze down the road from my New Mexico home, don't appear overnight. These regimented developments with minimal open or public space are a long time coming. They are coddled and nurtured by banks and real estate development corporations from their very conceptual stages. Their subdivisions are walked through review panels, approved by city counsels, and sometimes voted on in referendums. When we create public health organizations that these boards and corporations take seriously, we'll have their attention and we'll have leverage.

Here's how we might use the lever of architecture and city planning to change the shape of our society.
We can begin by making architecture and neighborhood design a funded category just as we have made healthy behaviors and disease prevention a category. Instead of putting money into planning activity, media campaigns or their evaluation, we'll use it to build a common ground. Literally.

Building a healthy community is not an abstract concept. It starts by building something real together. It could be a more natural environment; this doesn't necessarily mean waterfalls, antelope and trees. It could just mean a place surrounded by other creatively engaged human beings. It could even be a Gazebo.

A Gazebo is a small, elevated, covered and partially enclosed space in which a public activity takes place. Instead of an advertising campaign to discourage drug use or domestic violence, let's imagine the State Health Department issues the following RFGP (Request for Gazebo Proposals) to hundreds of local community based organizations.

The States RFP

The State, recognizing the complex interdependency of health, social and environmental issues, seeks to encourage the development of a healthy community through the creation of public space and the building of a community facility. To this end we are soliciting bids from community groups and their public and private venture partners for the purpose of creating such space or facilities.

The federal and state governments who have long contributed to planning studies as a part of the Healthy Community Concept, and offered grants to communities for the purposes of curtailing drug use, teen pregnancy, domestic violence and other social problems, now consolidate these efforts through this initiative.

This initiative is designed to serve as a focus around which volunteers, community agencies and for-profit real estate development partners can work together in the production of a finished product that can be a highly visible focal point for public activity, sociability and regular random encounters.

Your request for funding must describe the location of land you wish to purchase, lease or use, and architectural drawings of a structure to be built on it. This structure is to be a Gazebo.

Your proposal will explain how your Gazebo will be built and what kind of activities will occur there. You may wish to build a planning component into your proposal, but no funds will be given to planning. Monies awarded may be used for the acquisition of land or construction materials only.

Your Gazebo must be built by the individuals who initiate this proposal. That means carpentry, stone work, electrical work or decorative finishing must be provided by volunteer members of the proposing partnerships. In smaller towns and suburban communities, the Gazebo must be surrounded by an open space, which will be developed in a similar hands-on manner. That space might include benches, paths, playgrounds, artwork, and even areas for small scale sports or a public market.

Once built, the Gazebo and its surrounding space might be used for rock, rap, or classical concerts; ballets; jump rope; frog hopping or paper airplane making contests; kite building; gymnastic exhibitions; a comedy night; plays; skits; flea markets; political oration; Fourth of July celebrations; lectures; talks; poetry reading; and community health education.

Any adhoc group can respond to a request for a Gazebo Grant. But more likely than not, we will be fueling Boys Scouts or Girl Scouts or The Elks Club, or The March of Dimes, or some combination of established community groups working together. Since all different kinds of people will be needed to build a Gazebo and make use of it, we will need carpenters, electricians, teachers, musicians, artists, architects, lawyers, etc. We will be encouraging cross-fertilization of disciplines, and interaction between neighbors. This was much the idea behind Habitat for Humanity which involved volunteers building and remodeling homes for those who needed them. We're going to apply that successful principle to creating shared space. Our Gazebo will become a little community interaction machine.

Architecture is an invisible shaper of our culture, our behavior and our values. It is everywhere around us and usually invisible. We do not choose it; we do not even think about it. It is such an expensive proposition that except for the wealthy, we can not commission it ourselves.

Instead of producing meetings to solve our problems, we might produce more meeting places: courtyards, town squares, front porches, band shells, playgrounds and gazebos. This will lead to a more interactive environment, producing more sociability and regular random encounters. At the same time, we need to be educating builders and legislators about the value of creating an "encounter" culture. In this way we would be using our Public Health planning, research, evaluation and marketing dollars to build an urban environmental movement. Back porches are already standard on some low-income housing units. Front porches may be just around the corner.