If you’re in Chicago right now you should go visit the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.  Your visit might just help improve your city!

The Canadian Centre for Architecture has put together an exhibit called “Actions: What You Can Do With the City,” showcasing 99 projects from walking, playing, recycling to goats as lawnmowers and more.  What these projects all have in common is that they help make your city better.  The exhibit features ideas and actions that anyone and everyone can do, and it also shows everyday people making a difference in their community.

Can’t make it to Chicago?  Their website has an amazing database of projects to look through.  Want to combine bike power and agriculture?  Click on the two icons and find a man bicycling around Vancouver with a planter box on the front of his bike.  What about paint and sports?  The United Arab Emirates made a soccer field out of a public square.  What does that have to do with sustainability?  Studies have shown that more active cities are greener cities.  (Find out where your city ranks.)

What this really is, is a digital space of inspiration.  So often cities seem like lumbering beasts of consumption, and it’s difficult for our little efforts to push its movement one way or another.  The 99 Actions exhibit says we’re wrong.  With a few small changes you can actually make an impact.  I know you hear this all the time, but these projects prove it.

So go forth and do something!  Even if it’s walking around picking up trash.  Utilize sites like VolunteerMatch or take Michelle Obama’s challenge to get involved.  Whatever it is you do, it will make a difference. Here’s to a greener path in 2010.