Little Free Winnipeg Libraries

What are all the elements that make people more likely to successfully come together? It's complicated, but here are a few.

1 minute read

July 18, 2014, 10:00 AM PDT

By Scott Doyon


"Enjoying the multiple conversations that Monday’s piece started about Little Free Libraries, I can’t help but share the two that our family has been enjoying this summer. In doing so, there’s a striking difference between the development pattern of Monday’s neighbourhood in Kansas versus this 100-year-old Winnipeg neighbourhood in which I live. Do those development patterns have anything to do with the vastly different public responses that these libraries have received? Maybe not, but it’s an interesting contemplation."

Little Free Library in Crescentwood in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Image Credit: Hazel Borys, Creative Commons ShareAlike License

Little Free Library in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Image Credit: Hazel Borys, Creative Commons License

Hazel Borys goes on to point out the differences between places that have a multitude of gathering places designed into them from day one. And how that changes our ability to peacefully gather.

"I’m not suggesting that the troubles experienced in Monday’s story come down to something as simple as the few dynamics I’m describing, however it does remind me of Winston Churchill’s words, 'We shape our cities, and then they shape us.'"

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