Imagining Site Liberation in Anacostia
Partner
Anacostia Business Improvement District
Lead
Priscilla Forde
Outcome(s)
Production of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis
Creation of an illustrative place improvement plan, exploring the concept of site liberation
Research presentation at Annual Georgetown Global Cities Initiative Annual Research Summit
Year
2023
Through an experiential partnership with the Anacostia Business Improvement District (BID), Spaces for Souls analyzed and collaborated on place-based solutioning for one of the most vulnerable Black neighborhoods in Washington, D.C. (USA). This partnership involved meeting with Anacostan leaders across spheres of community health, economics, security, and business to deploy place-based site analysis and inform a proposed place improvement plan.
To produce a qualitative analysis and inform place improvement recommendations, this effort’s methodology combined several forms of inquiry, which included:
place-based field observations,
field interviews with community stakeholders, and
secondary source review.
Ultimately this plan recognized that structurally racist forces across various sectors including the built environment, public safety and works, public policy, community health, private development, and urban planning have all contributed to not only unequitable life and livelihood outcomes for this community, but also the destruction of this Black community’s inherent right to thrive.
Upon completion of the analysis and plan and delivery to the Anacostia BID, Priscilla Forde of Spaces for Souls virtually presented findings and insights at the Georgetown Global Cities Initiative Annual Research Summit in February 2024.
Combining insights from transformative placemaking practice and Black Radical Tradition concepts on liberation, …site liberation in practice…[is] an intentional, visionary process to construct both physical and social access points in a spatiality that ultimately that renders compounding social inequities obsolete in place.
- Imagining Site Liberation for MLK and Marion Barry Ave and Beyond, Priscilla Forde, 2023.
