The Compton Corridor spheres weren’t installed on a whim. They were actually something that the community asked for by name — and that’s something that all of our communities should strive for.

Since 2013, Alderwoman Christine Ingrassia has instituted a participatory budgeting process to solicit citizen feedback on how the ward should spend their share of city tax dollars to improve their neighborhood. Multiple residents, Ingrassia says, pointed to slowing down Compton as a high priority.

As one of the only through-streets in a mostly residential ward bounded by stroads and a highway, cars frequently use Compton as a cut through, ignoring posted speed limits and blowing through the neighborhood’s nearly block-by-block stop signs. While Compton is by no means a stroad — it has one lane in each direction, flanked by parked cars — the street’s wide lane width, roomy intersections, and proximity to high-speed arterials communicate to drivers that they can safely speed up, resulting in an often harrowing experience for walkers and bikers, and more than our neighborhood’s fair share of car crashes. Ingrassia noted that some residents had had multiple parked cars sideswept and totaled by those just passing through.

Ingrassia’s choice to tap into the knowledge base of her constituents when deciding how to improve the neighborhood was a wise one. I, and nearly all of my civically involved neighbors, knew about the proposal long before the first ball was bolted to the ground, and we felt a sense of ownership and advocacy of it from day one.



What Ward 6 could have done better — and this is every town’s challenge when it comes to meaningful community engagement — was to reach out even more. When it comes to your town, providing childcare to busy parents who can’t otherwise attend budget meetings, expanding meeting times and venues to reach more people, and devoting more resources to developing deep relationships in the neighborhood and publicizing these initiatives far and wide can always help more neighbors feel involved in the process.

2. Build Incrementally

Of course, many of the most vocal detractors of the concrete balls aren’t people from my neighborhood at all — they’re the drivers that use Compton as part of their daily commute, but don’t actually stop to walk around and experience the neighborhood as a resident might.

There are limits to how much buy-in you can build among drivers like these, especially if their only priority is cutting a few minutes off their trip (and everyone else’s safety be damned). But implementing traffic calming measures in incremental phases can act as a visual warning that a project is coming, even to those just passing through — and give leaders a chance to hear and respond to feedback before the concrete is poured.

The Compton ball project actually began with nothing more than paint on the ground (see video below) — an inexpensive move that piqued driver curiosity and attracted media attention, getting the word out about the changes long before they became permanent.