It’s messy and you will make mistakes. That was one of the first things that people told us at the second Civic Commons Studio in the windy city.

As the sounds of live music float through the air and warmer evenings extend the daylight just a bit longer, the Park East neighborhood in Akron

Have you ever worked on a project with classmates, family members or a scout group? If you have, the sound of the word “collaboration” may conjure up sweaty palms, shortness of breath or pure panic.

Summit Metro Parks is getting involved in a big way in Akron’s Summit Lake neighborhood. It will soon be adding benches, picnic tables, a picnic shelter, water fountains and perhaps a small fishing pier at Summit Lake in South Akron

Overcoming stigma was the subject of a recent learning journey made by members of the Akron Reimagining the Civic Commons (RCC) Core Team. Members traveled to a neighborhood in Dallas named Oak Cliff.

Efforts are under way to spruce up and revitalize downtown Akron’s Lock 2 Park.

The Summit Lake Pride, the Spirit, the News, the Leader, the Heronry. Those were among the names proposed in a brainstorming session for the new community newsletter that is taking shape in Akron’s Summit Lake neighborhood.

Brought together by a love of all things Akron and a desire to reinvent our civic common spaces, the Akron Civic Commons core team was formed.

The first Reimagining the Civic Commons Studio in Philadelphia was an incredibly inspiring experience as we engaged in stimulating conversations

In a Midwestern, midsized city, one tends to get stuck in the middle, the space between. Not urban, but certainly not rural. Not a big city, but definitely not a small town. Not cutting edge, but not backwards.

Red sticky circles. Green adhesive-backed dots. That’s how one neighborhood in Akron, Ohio, built consensus on what projects are most needed to benefit the area around Summit Lake through the Reimagining the Civic Commons initiative.

A team of environmental experts will soon be looking at contaminated sediments at the bottom of Summit Lake and water quality in the lake.