Black Rock City is created every year at the end of August by 50,000 people who converge on the desert each year to create this temporary but legitimate city with its own street grid, laws, and social codes. It has many of the characteristics of “normal” cities. Its “Department of Public Works” lays the fencing and builds the roads around Black Rock City, and takes them all down afterward. A temporary airport receives flights and guides takeoffs. A”post office” processes mail.. A”census bureau” collects data. The city has an official radio station, a register of cards and vehicles, a local security force known as the Danger Rangers.
Participants see the city as an exemplar of participatory self-governance and as an example of how freethinking people can build a better society if they pool resources and work communally. Black Rock City is very different from many contemporary cities. It is a festival city, meaning that it is a place of Burning Man festival, one of the most known festivals on the world.
What kind of lessons can city marketers, city managers and urban planners learn from this festival, fun city?
The following 3 articles mini-serie was written in collaboration with Matevz Straus & Juan Sebastián Orozco Ramírez Follow my blog for the next few days to find out all of our findings!