What is civic infrastructure?

How we manage growth and change — from housing and transportation to sidewalks and public spaces—will impact our lives and our children's lives for decades to come. We need a robust and adaptive civic infrastructure to make sure the local policies, programs, and practices connect and build our community’s future with equity.

So what exactly is civic infrastructure and how do we build it?

Simply put, civic infrastructure is the three-dimensional scaffolding of a community. Rather than facilitating change with a bottom-up grassroots approach, a thriving civic infrastructure incorporates residents at every level: from essential workers to young adults to public and private sector leadership.

Our civic infrastructure includes all the ways we work together as a whole community, in order to make our community whole. It’s how we collaborate across sectors to support our public institutions, like schools and publicly owned housing. It’s when elected officials make policies that protect our public spaces, like parks and buildings. It’s where local people come together to improve our public assets, like buses and sidewalks.

At Thrive Asheville, we are helping build a civic infrastructure by planning with purpose and building authentic relationships among community members from diverse backgrounds.