Motus Playback Theater for Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan in 2025

Recurring themes included inclusivity, environmental preservation, and equitable housing. Respondents envisioned a Boulder Valley that uplifts marginalized voices, centers sustainability, and supports generational wealth-building for all communities.ription text goes here

Strengths: Access to natural spaces, a sense of safety, and improvements in city outreach (e.g., bilingual resources). Weaknesses: Performative inclusion, economic inequities, and systemic barriers to housing and participation.

Affordable housing and food justice were top priorities, with participants calling for structural reforms to address poverty, housing costs, and inequitable access to resources.

Participants highlighted climate resilience, education, and systemic equity as critical long-term priorities. They emphasized the need for infrastructure to combat natural disasters and support vulnerable populations.

Responses included cultural diversity, storytelling, and intergenerational knowledge. Libraries, community spaces, and marginalized community leaders were seen as vital but underutilized.

Participants urged planners to adopt preventative strategies, center marginalized voices, and view Boulder as an interconnected entity. Calls for equity-driven policies and accountability were particularly strong.

1. "A community garden. I want to see community gardens because they help people grow and get stronger." (Child’s response)

2. "Balanced and right relationship to native peoples, returning stewardship and land to native peoples, power relinquishment by affluent and dominant power. Additional and different ways to draft and introduce policy changes at the community level, abolition, and co-creation far beyond DEI."

3. "Systemic abolition, reparations, repatriation, and creation. Restoring disenfranchised people to their lands, identities, and cultures while addressing systemic inequities."

1. "Improved language access through city interpretation services, allowing broader participation in events and fostering inclusivity."

2. "Strength: A strong, engaged, and collaborative community ethos."

3. "Weakness: A prevalence of performative inclusion masking racism, classism, and segregation."

1. "Current challenges include housing inadequacies post-Marshall Fire, lack of fire hydrants, and infrastructural failures (e.g., water, electricity) during natural disasters."

2. "Boulder has barriers ('toxins') preventing the retention of Black community members despite ongoing feedback sessions about systemic racism and lack of actionable change."

3. "Affordable housing that genuinely meets the needs of low-income residents. '$2,000 a month is not affordable for people making $10 an hour.'"

• Climate change resilience—infrastructure for flood and fire prevention.

• Water and food security—ensuring sustainability for all residents.

• Economic resilience to address automation and displacement in the workforce.

• Housing affordability to combat displacement and maintain a diverse community.

• Universal access to healthcare and education.

• Collective action to combat environmental degradation.

1. "Recurring opportunities for storytelling and feedback every three months to engage broader representation beyond Boulder."

2. "Emphasis on ancestral knowledge, cultural diversity, and the creative arts as underutilized assets to foster inclusivity and strengthen the community."

3. "Highlighting the power of stories: 'For every dollar hoarded, there’s another person’s story that wasn’t told.'"

1. "We are one body. We cannot neglect a part of the body and expect to have a healthy entity."

2. "Flip the table. I don't want policies written for us without us."

3. "We need to design not just for maintenance but to lay the groundwork for a new kind of community."

4. "Emphasizing the elimination of poverty as a human rights imperative."

Recurring themes included  commitment to supporting underrepresented community voices. Sharing a passion for arts and storytelling, believing they are powerful tools for driving change. Driven by a strong desire to highlight the issues facing immigrant and marginalized families.

Conflicting feelings included a hope for change but wary of inaction that can occur. People are inspired by community dialogue but frustrated by the slow progress. Some community members were also torn between advocacy in their day to day and exhaustion from repeated engagement. 

Participants highlighted sustainable and affordable communities with diverse housing options, improved safety through better public infrastructure, and hopes of being a place where cultural heritage and indigenous history are honored. 

Strengths: Natural beauty and access to parks, strong community network and activism, and environmental leadership.

Weaknesses: High cost of living and exclusionary structures, neglecting homeless population, performative inclusivity without meaningful systemic change, political structures that fail to represent marginalized communities.

Boulder’s biggest current needs include affordable housing and protections for renters, expanded access to mental health and addiction services, and urgent climate action and wildfire preparedness. The City should focus on targets already set for emissions, affordable housing, and others, which have not yet been achieved.

Responses included the primary source of wisdom that exist in community knowledge and intergenerational wisdom. The underutilized potential that exists in youth leadership and civic engagement programs. Also noted was the unused public and faith-based spaces for community needs. 

• “We show up because our stories deserve to be heard.”

• “Art has the power to move hearts and shift minds.”

• “Our children’s future is worth fighting for.”

• “We’ve shared our truths before—will this time be different?”

• “We carry both hope and heartbreak.”

• “It’s hard to believe change is coming, but we must try.”

• “A Boulder where everyone belongs, not just those who can afford it.”

• “Keep our open spaces, build where it makes sense.”

• “Inclusion should be more than a buzzword.”

• “We have nature’s gift—let’s not waste it.”

• “Our biggest weakness is pricing out our own community.”

• “Equity must mean action, not just talk.”

• “Safe and stable housing is the foundation for everything.”

• “We can’t address climate justice without social justice.”

• “Our youth need more than promises—they need opportunities.”

• “The greatest resource we have is each other.”

• “Young people aren’t the future—they’re the now.”

• “Our churches and libraries could be hubs for healing and connection.”