GREENFIELD — It may sound like a Disney game, but “Superbia” is a real-life approach to actual neighborhoods — and how neighbors can make them more socially, economically and environmentally sustainable.
For the neighborhood stretching five blocks or more in either direction from Temple Israel on Pierce Street, people of various religions and backgrounds are coming together for a “Superbia” project that’s working on finding ways to build connections in “a neighborhood re-design for growing community and resilience.”
A community garden is just one of several likely outcomes, but the end result really depends on what neighbors decide to pursue, with the key being a growth in social cohesion, organizers say.
A potluck is planned for March 5 from 4 to 7 p.m. at the synagogue as a kick-off for a community planning process that’s designed to be the first phase of a neighborhood-wide transformation.
Lisa Ranghelli, who lives a couple of doors away from the synagogue on Myrtle Street and calls herself “a fellow traveler of the temple,” hopes to make part of her side yard available for a shared garden as part of the project.
“I really feel the path ahead for our country and for our planet’s really unclear,” she says. “More and more, I think we’re going to need to rely on our local community for not just comfort, social interaction and connectivity, but for our livelihoods and our food. We need to learn to be more self-sufficient as a community, not just as individuals.”
Rabbi Andrea Cohen-Kiener was involved in a community garden before moving to Greenfield a couple of years ago from Hartford and has helped find ways for the synagogue to reach out to the larger community.
“We want to get people thinking about our area as a place where the community fabric is really held together by people knowing each other and connecting around their mutual needs,” Cohen-Kiener says. “We’re reaching out to homeowners, renters, probably people of different income levels, family statuses, with different kinds of backyards, leafleting door-to-door to interest people to come to this.
“What comes out the other side is co-created by people who show up and have the interest, enthusiasm and some skills around this.”
Greenfield’s “Superbia” project, named after the book “Superbia: 31 Ways to Create Sustainable Neighborhoods” by Dan Chiras and Dave Wann, is an outgrowth of a series of 2015 workshops at the temple with permaculture designer-educator Abrah Dresdale, who will offer an introduction to permaculture planning on a neighborhood scale.
“It’s a mash-up of Transition Towns, community planning, community gardens and permaculture design,” says Dresdale, referring to “Transition Towns” movement to build close-knit communities for sharing ideas and resources, and to the Earth-friendly agricultural approach using perennial plantings that provide food.
The community-building project grew out of Dresdale’s discussions at Temple Israel around the biblical principle of “shmita,” encouraging the taking down of fences and emphasizing the commons and sharing of surplus produce and resources.
“How can we live into this vibrant vision of community?” ask organizers of the project, which Dresdale imagines “will grow in concentric rings of involvement each year.”
Ranghelli describes herself as “kind of a shy extrovert” (“I like to interact with people, but not necessarily going around knocking on neighbors’ doors”). She says the project is “sort of like co-housing” in a neighborhood where some people know some of their neighbors, “keep an eye out for each other and are there for each other when the need is expressed,” but don’t necessarily interact a lot.
She points to the satisfaction of seeing “waves of cars” on the street for weekly Amandla chorus rehearsals, Sunday school classes and other events: “I kind of like it. It makes me feel there’s a community hub right nearby.”
Having structured activities in the neighborhood, like a community garden, as a way to get to know people and interact, Ranghelli says, “feels like we’re heading in right direction for the community building I want to do and the kinds of skills and capacities I think we’re going to need, to be less dependent on what’s going on at the macro level.”
Cohen-Kiener says that whatever the project agrees to grow “will be an educational opportunity for us. We’ll see if we grow horseradish for the Hebrew school to sell at Passover, or a pickle garden, or a ‘pizza garden’ for community meals … We’ll decide together what we want to plant and harvest there.”
Anita Lockesmith, who lives a little farther away, on Abbott Street, has offered her barn as a place where shared gardening tools can stored.
“I think people are feeling disconnected in a lot of ways,” she says. “There’s a sharpening of separations with people, so it’s constantly an effort over how do we connect, how do we continue to reach out in ways that feel kind of neutral? Food feels kind of neutral.”
A recent kickoff meeting, attended by about a dozen people — some of them temple members, who will also be part of the Superbia group, “People were excited,” Lockesmith says.
Among other ideas that came bubbling up were hands-on workshops on permaculture gardening, excess produce going to a food pantry or preserved for pantry donation — or maybe a neighborhood list-serve for sharing information about, for example, excess leaves available for compost or a sick neighbor who might needs a hand.
“The exciting thing to me,” says Cohen-Kiener, “is that we have the environmental understanding, like putting a seed in the ground and what kind of potting soil you use. … But the social technology — how people meet and stay connected, and how that affects our day-to-day life: that’s an open ended question.”
On the Web: www.terrain.org/articles/13/superbia.htm
www.templeisraelgreenfield.org
You can reach Richie Davis at
rdavis@recorder.com
or 413-772-0261, ext. 269