There's no sidewalk in front of our house in Bernau. Cars drive where people walk, and people walk where cars drive. It's been that way for decades, and the strongest argument for keeping it that way is that it's been that way for decades.
How to start a citizens' initiative without meaning to
I really just wanted to know who was responsible. The answer was a new question, and so was the next answer, and at some point I was standing in front of neighbors with a signature list, neighbors I'd previously only ever nodded to in passing. It turned out: everyone had been annoyed for years, nobody had ever started anything. I think that's the default state of things.
Who's involved
By now I'm leading the initiative, working with the Bernau SPD and BVB/Freie Wähler, and I've learned how a municipal administration thinks. The Märkische Oderzeitung has reported on it, and by now the issue has reached the mayor's desk too.
What I learned about dramaturgy along the way
Municipal administration is material with a huge supporting cast, very little exposition, and a second act that runs about four years. Every character in it has good reasons, none of them is the antagonist. I've rarely seen so clearly that a conflict works even without a villain. You just have to stick with it long enough.
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