Bhagyashri, thanks for sharing this insightful post. The idea of 'place-keeping' is particularly relevant in these times. Our interest in the ashwath katte project started for this reason. It was intriguing to find that people were not only able to 'create' community spaces with the peepul tree as the anchor but were also able to 'sustain' it due to its religious significance. Perhaps, we need to find what we might introduce for the younger generations that can replace the 'religious' component. How would we help sustain or as you point out, work towards place-keeping for those who are coming to a public space for reasons other than to pray and who might not see value in a continued involvement with its maintenance if it is not as part of a religious activity. Maybe, there can be an element of 'community service' as we find in several towns and cities that youth have come together during the Ganesha festival or the Durga Puja time to organise a pandal for the idol, to feed the poor and to hold cultural events for the period of the festival. While it would be good to persuade the local government to involve the resident groups in decision-making for public spaces, at our end, we are looking to also document best practices from neighbourhoods where community governance is working well. One of these is from the temple and ashwath katte at Doddamavalli in Bangalore where the temple trustees manage the daily functioning of the temple, the ashwath katte, the kalyana mandapam and the santhe (market) quite well. We think one of our tasks going forward could be to interact with the residents and trustees to find out how and why this neighbourhood community space has been working well. It is possible that there are other communities in the city who are able to maintain and manage shared urban resources well. It would be great to know more from them and to learn how to then formalise this.