Talk Wellington takes a pause

A couple of weeks ago we reported in our Weekly Roundup that sister site Talk Wellington/ Kōrero Shaping Wellington – the hub of urbanist discussion and action for our capital – was going into hiatus after seven years. With kind permission, we’re reposting in full the farewell post by TalkWelly founder Isabella Cawthorn.

We’re sharing it in tribute to the seven years of incredible pro-bono work performed by dedicated brilliant people, and as a salute to the heroic range of transformative mahi Talk Welly managed to accomplish, working pro bono with good citizens of all kinds, inside and outside the organisations that shape Aotearoa’s capital city.

And because – who knows – it might draw newly energised people towards the cause. Onwards!

Talk Wellington is winding down, after seven years. Here’s the lowdown and – right at the end – where to go to get your better-city-changemaking fix!

Seven years… it just seems significant for humans. Seven years crops up again and again in our fairy tales, our religions, all those deep structures of our cultures.

Perhaps it’s no coincidence that after seven years, it’s time for me, Isabella, to step back from Talk Wellington.

It’s been a great run, giving life to the kaupapa with lots of joy, lots of excitement and anxiety, and loads and loads and loads of hard work.

So, what’s all that mahi been doing?

Creating the stuff you see publicly on the web – here on the website and on the socials

• The 500-odd posts on Talk Wellington here, every one illuminating something interesting about our urban places with data, poetry, argument, personal stories, analysis, polemics, kids’ drawings, musings, tools, exhortations and sass. And, crucially, encouraging illuminated readers to act on it – which has been a distinguishing feature of Talk Wellington relative to other (much smarter) platforms like The Kākā, Newsroom et al.
• All the social-media-pointing, to direct people to innumerable other folks’ work that said it better, or more entertainingly, or with better visuals. And all the social media doing “just your regular reminder”s – because apparently we all need regular reminders about things like induced demand, or that it’s good for residential developments to design for community, or for reduced runoff, or that a kid hit by a car is a lot less hurt if car’s doing 30 kph than 50kph … etc etc.
• The interminable good-faith explaining and engaging on the issues, in the disintegrating spheres of Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin (plus the occasional guffaw and occasional mute/block).

Creating the stuff that turns up in your inbox as a newsletter subscriber

A tailor-made, special email written fresh every few weeks with previews of all the posts, plus special features about events, initiatives and actions likely to inspire and fill people’s cups for good city stuff.

[Sidebar: a great event to alert people to has been, since 2018, the most excellent Urbanerds. While inspiring other cities to set up their own, Urbanerds has become an in-person, interactive, real-time complementary forum to the basic blog experience of Talk Wellington. Fun fact: the “roundup of happenings” posts you see occasionally on here were inspired by hearing at Urbanerds that people like having some topical stuff to start conversations about! Urbanerds is going strong and I’m continuing as co-host with Oliver and Matt, so make sure you’re plugged in by receiving the monthly reminders.]

Doing the stuff that fuels others’ mahi bettering our places

This stuff has never appeared as public content. But since 2019’s change of gear, it’s been the lion’s share of the “Talk Wellington work” – trying to advance the kaupapa of a more informed and engaged citizenry being a force for good urban change. It’s been pretty random and varied activity, like:

• Bringing nerdy, complex issues to busy journalists through explainers, deep background briefings and quick research roundups on topical issues, so they can do their great work even better
• Being a channel for important tip-offs from “inside The System” to get to mainstream journalists, while providing extra protection for the sources (more on that below)
• Helping connect good people needing things with good people who can provide those things – from employment roles to pro bono legal help to borrowing stencils to effective tenders…
• Organising a local body candidates’ briefing on the fundamentals of urban science, in the runup to the 2019 local body election.

So with the blog itself, the newsletter all the beyond-the-website changemaking, and my perpetual anxiety about not getting it right or missing an important nuance… it’s been a lot.

And, friends, ’tis the season to call it, and step back.

SUPERMASSIVE THANKS

Thanks to the teams!

Thanks to my OG Talk Wellington crew, and subsequently the amazing interns Maddy and Grace. These two have been great intellectual companions and amazing support, from whom I learned huge amounts. Thanks too to those who’ve lent a hand at various points over the seven years, especially those who’ve injected (or tried to) some structure and discipline to my “post-about-everything” impulses.

Thanks to the sources!

Talk Wellington never leaked anything – it was a staunch policy of mine. But as all the actual journalists know, good reporting and analysis on many crucial urban issues is thwarted by the time and effort required to dig things out of “publicly available information” (e.g. figure 83 and paragraph 16.4.6 on page 217 of a scanned PDF in a nested page of a website with terrible SEO). And once you’ve got it, 40+ pages of it from 25 different sources, then you have to make sure you understand it all enough to be able to say something accurate, correct and inspiring – because that’s why we need the fourth estate.

It’s JUST SO HARD. And, often, there’s just not time: so we get superficiality, wrong facts, misrepresentation, dumb takes, clickbaitery – or no coverage at all.

So thanks to those of you who helped me over those huge barriers of time, effort and brains.

Thanks to the ghost writers, especially for your patience with my Isabella-ising your personal writing styles. And for the vastly more of you who relied on me to “get it”, and then to articulate it: thanks for the late-night phonecalls, for the low-key meetings, for your personal phone numbers and emails, for trusting me. Thanks for taking the risk, trusting that I would keep you safe doing good work inside The System, so the important information could get out there and fuel people to do something good with it. Deep bows to you.

Thanks to the even nerdier nerds!

To the advisors, informers, explainers, point-outers, steerers, experts of all kinds, who helped me – a novice –  get something useful to the public about your expert fields. Insight about towns and cities invariably demands both multidisciplinarity and narrow deep expertise. I am an urbanist Swiss army knife, a multidisciplinary nerd haunted by the fact that my little hacksaw, screwdriver and bottle-opener are feeble, basic versions of the dedicated, specialist tools. So thanks, all you dedicated tools, for your help with exciting and activating regular people. Love you nerds!

Thanks to those who’ve read, and brought other eyes.

Those of you who read and shared our stuff, and pointed to it, getting it far more eyes than our little mailing list and paltry social media could reach. Especially thanks for doing this to your peers, your bosses, your leaders when Talk Wellington was saying something you felt you couldn’t say, but that needed to be heard.

Thanks to you do-ers.

Many of you have acted on what you’ve discovered through Talk Wellington, and that’s magnificent. Over the years I’ve learned, directly and indirectly, that because of something on Talk Wellington people have:

• made their first ever formal submission on anything
• made their first-ever submission in person (with their kid too!)
• initiated a conversation at playgroup about safer local streets
• run an event to start a play street movement in their suburb
• talked to their local shopkeepers about retail custom and parking
• found a crew so “trying to make things better feels less hard and more fun now”
• organised an outing (several in fact)
• spoken to their councillor or MP for the first time
• just been so buzzed about something that they’ve enthused to strangers about it on the bus!

This, friends, is urban civics.

This is regular people, taking the initiative to make our places better.

The power of this is why I set up Talk Wellington.

And it’s filled my heart and kept me going through this pretty wild ride.

Now, Talk Wellington will go into hibernation, or maybe estivation. Will it ever reactivate? Who knows.

The site will stay live on the web, because so many challenges and opportunities for our towns seem quite enduring – this stuff is going to be useful for quite some time!

But there’ll be no new content on the site and no other activity.

For your urbanist fixes…

When you’re looking for a steer on some urban issue and you want to take a generally “fairer, more prosperous, more sustainable” approach, try these “where we’d go for guidance” sources: for things transport and for things housing/landuse/urban development urbanism.

I recommend The Wellington Spinoff very much: equal parts top-shelf urban nerdery and trenchant critiques of Wellington dining and popular culture.

If in doubt, try asking your local councillors – or tap networks of people at your local school, marae, bus stop, sports club, community garden, busy street-corner, zinefest, or makerspace… Or just start something yourself (perhaps for Neighbours Day): put up some posters, make your cause sound appealing, and see who comes!

Go forth and be awesome

You, the citizens, are the lifeblood of a great urban place.

Yes, formal leaders do matter, but never forget that the very point of towns and cities is people, lots of different people, all doing life close together in the same places.

It’s people magic.

Share this