Reimagining Community Care as Urban Infrastructure: An Arts‐Based Inquiry

In cities across Canada, recent fragility in formal infrastructures of care has highlighted the importance of community care during moments of crisis. This includes care provided by neighbours, grassroots networks and non‐profit organisations. To explore how community care functions and how it might contribute to creating more caring cities in and beyond moments of crisis, this paper presents findings from a community‐engaged arts initiative in the city of Guelph, a mid‐sized city in Ontario, Canada. Through this research, participants shared stories about their experiences of community care in the early stages of the pandemic, as well as their ideas about what could make their city more caring. A narrative analysis of these stories highlights how community care was experienced during this period and illuminates where and how infrastructures of community care might be maintained, continued, repaired and re‐imagined to create more caring cities.