a space to think out loud ↓

Small actions, compounding into a regenerative economy.

A space to brainstorm ideas and consider real-world initiatives already underway: efforts to infuse fresh life into our fraying market economy by creating and supporting regenerative community work and job creation in the arts.

Six places to begin

ecology
1

Rewild Your Lawn

Action leaders: homeowners with lawns

Turn your lawn into a maze of paths and flourishing gardens: grow flowers, vegetables, and fruit. Some tips from Less Lawn More Life: start with a 5 ft × 5 ft area. Watch Plan it Wild, a landscaping firm, share a brief tutorial on The Today Show.

Do it yourself, or if you can afford it, help the local economy and hire a local landscaper to help you. Make it fun and join the free Less Lawn More Life 12-week challenge.

Noted botanist and author Robin Wall Kimmerer launched the Less Lawn More Life 12-week challenge:

"Imagine the impact if that 67 million acres became pollinator sanctuaries, if it became a source of pure water, of soil building and carbon storage." — Robin Wall Kimmerer (video, 30:00 mark)
Economies grown

Seeds, fertilizer, garden tools, maintenance gardeners, landscapers. Imagine this multiplied by 50 million lawns.

Economies reduced

Lawn mowers, pesticides.

Building bonds

Beyond your own lawn: cities and nonprofits can scale this up by hiring and training young adults to identify government-owned grassy areas suitable for rewilding, and get planting.

Less Lawn More Life → Plan it Wild → Watch the tutorial →
arts
2

Rent Art in Your Office, Store, or Home

Action leaders: companies with offices, store and restaurant owners

Renting art is a fun and affordable action large and small companies can take to support contemporary artists as well as make their offices more enjoyable to work in. Search the internet for art rental companies in your area.

NYC-based Curina operates as a for-profit company, renting original work nationwide for roughly $38 to $348 a month.

Check out as well the Cambridge Art Association for a comprehensive nonprofit business model focused on a local community (Cambridge, MA).

For artists outside major art-rental markets: Wondering how to get your work into a corporate collection? Artquest's guide to corporate art collections lays out the contacts worth pursuing — HR, facilities, the architects and designers planning new spaces, and the art consultants companies hire to curate.

Economies grown

Artists, art supplies, art installation, rental companies.

Building bonds

No art-rental program in your area? Organize with local artists to build a rental operation in your community.

See Curina → Cambridge Art Assoc. → Artquest guide →
music
3

Hire Musicians to Play at Your Restaurant, Store, or Event

Action leaders: restaurant & store owners, event planners

Live music draws customers, provides musicians with work, and brings people together.

Examples of organizations with music for hire programs:

An historical night hearing jazz out on the town: Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Tommy Potter, Duke Jordan, and Max Roach at the Three Deuces, August 1947.

Economies grown

Working musicians, music educators, instrument shops, sound technicians.

Building bonds

No music collectives in your area? Organize your own collective, build a simple website, promote online, and stop by restaurants and stores to ask if they'd like to host live music.

UNT music → Jazz Foundation → Boston Music Project → Three Deuces, 1947 →
arts
4

Hire a Muralist to Paint Your Storefront

Action leaders: store owners

Commission a mural to get your store noticed and show love to your community. Turn a wall into an art piece and a working artist gets paid.

Get inspired by PaintCare and the Albany Parking Authority's partnership to paint a large-scale mural across a parking garage using recycled paint.

For visual inspiration, browse Architectural Digest's gallery of the world's best-designed street murals.

Economies grown

Muralists, paint and materials suppliers, scaffolding rental, local foot traffic.

Building bonds

Business districts can pool funds for a mural trail; cities can streamline permits for public art.

PaintCare mural → AD mural gallery →
artscivic
5

Buy Art or Fund Exhibits in Vacant Storefronts and Lots

Action leaders: local residents

Art displays in vacant storefronts and empty lots, going on now:

Chehalis Storefront Art Project places art exhibits and pop-up galleries around Chehalis, WA in empty storefronts until they are rented. The initiative keeps empty sites active to draw people to areas that experience less foot traffic.

The Chehalis Storefront Art Project is modeled after the Eugene Storefront Art Project (Windowfront Exhibitions) in Eugene, OR. Browse beautiful exhibits photographed in A Brief History of Windowfront Exhibitions.

LVL3's Art Lot is, from LVL3's website, "a 16′×81′, empty, gravel lot in Red Hook, Brooklyn, which has been functioning as an outdoor artist-run space for three decades."

Economies grown

Local artists, curators, art supplies, installers.

Building bonds

Cities provide financial grants and commission public works; residents organize fundraisers to sustain and expand these programs.

Chehalis project → LVL3 Art Lot →
ecologycivic
6

Build a Green Roof

Action leaders: owners of buildings that have flat, load-bearing roofs

Green roofs have vegetation that absorbs rainwater, provides insulation, and combats the urban heat-island effect. NYC.gov offers tax abatements for property owners who build them.

Visit Brooklyn Grange Farm's website for ideas on how to begin a rooftop garden operation.

Economies grown

Green-roof installers, structural engineers, native-plant nurseries, ongoing maintenance crews.

Building bonds

Cities and states can expand tax abatements and offer technical guidance for first-time builders.

Costs of installing and maintaining a green roof vary by type. The EPA's guide to using green roofs to reduce heat islands outlines green roof types, costs, and social and environmental benefits (retrieved May 19, 2026). (archived version)

NYC tax abatement → Brooklyn Grange Farm →

About Visible Commons

Hi, I'm Heather Waters. I built Visible Commons because I want to be part of a conversation shift I wish I was seeing more of: focusing on strengthening local economies, and taking seriously the question of how to create jobs in the arts and humanities for people whose work is being displaced by AI. The actions I'm collecting here — small, concrete, doable ones — felt scattered across the internet and worth gathering in one place.

By day, I work as an accounting consultant for nonprofits and small businesses. Here is my profile on LinkedIn. I also write occasionally about culture and the economy. My essay Theater: A Major Job Sector in The Theatre Times argues for taking arts-sector job creation more seriously — a thread that runs through this site as well.

About the project

Visible Commons is, for now, a one-person, part-time project. Submissions are read by hand. Ideas are added carefully. If you have feedback, questions, or an idea you'd like to send in, the submission form is the best way to reach me about the site itself; LinkedIn is the best way to reach me about paid consulting work. I built this site with Claude.ai (Anthropic), which did a beautiful job translating my directions into the design and code.

Support Visible Commons

To help with the costs of maintaining this site, and the time to keep expanding it:

☕ Buy Me a Coffee

Have an idea of your own?

Send in an action of your own, or context and local examples for the ones here. Strong submissions get added to the site.

Submit an idea →
add to the commons ↓

Submit an idea

Have an action of your own, or context on one already here? Send it in. Strong submissions get added to the site. This is a part-time project, so it may take a little while to review.

What makes a submission we can use

Successful submissions will focus on the action itself and its economic or community impact, not political or religious viewpoints — an action easily replicated, riffed on, or scaled.

  • Clear on first read. The whole pitch should make sense to a stranger with no background: no insider terms, no need to follow a link to understand it.
  • Backed by checkable resources. Include at least one working link, but two or three is best (three max): organizations already doing it, a demo, a city program, a how-to. Real examples, not theory.
  • Under 500 words. If it can't be explained in 500 words, it isn't ready yet. The counter below will help.

We're especially glad to see ideas that create real, accessible work, particularly for young people entering a job market reshaped by automation. But every idea that grows a regenerative economy is welcome here.

Thank you, it's in.

Your idea has been submitted for review. If it's a good fit, you'll see it on the site before long. The commons grows from contributions like yours.

Only your name (or initials) is required. Email is optional and stays private — provide it if you'd like to be notified when your idea is added to the site, or if you want to be reached for permission first. State is optional, and welcome context.

A short, plain headline. "Rewild Your Lawn." Not "A Paradigm Shift in Suburban Land Use."
Who actually does this? Homeowners, store owners, city officials, neighbors…
Explain the action, the economies it grows, the economies it might reduce, and how someone starts. Must stand on its own, under 500 words.
0 / 500 words
Organizations already doing it, a demo, a city program, a how-to guide. Resource links are verified before publishing — this is how readers, and we, confirm the idea is real.

Submissions are reviewed by hand before anything goes on the site. If your idea is selected, we'll email you first to get written permission before publishing. Your email stays private and is only used to reach you about your submission.