I remember a workshop we conducted for the Victorian Roads
Corporation (VicRoads) in Melbourne in 1990. The Corporation had
never invited community members into their building. As it was
the first day of spring, Graeme Dunstan and I filled the room with
flowers: daffodils and freesias. Staffing the front desk was one of
the facilitators with her new baby on her breast. We were trying to
say to the community members and the Corporation’s planners and
engineers that this workshop was about ‘ordinary’ things. Formally,
we were discussing Melbourne’s arterial roads, but we also wanted
to consider mothers, babies, noise and neighbourhood protection.
Intimate, local issues.