In September 2012, Mojang began the Block by Block project in cooperation with
UN Habitat to create real-world environments in
Minecraft. The project allows young people who live in those environments to participate in designing the changes they would like to see. Using
Minecraft, the community has helped reconstruct the areas of concern, and citizens are invited to enter the
Minecraft servers and modify their own neighborhood. Carl Manneh, Mojang's managing director, called the game "the perfect tool to facilitate this process", adding "The three-year partnership will support UN-Habitat's Sustainable Urban Development Network to upgrade 300 public spaces by 2016." Mojang signed
Minecraft building community,
FyreUK, to help render the environments into
Minecraft. The first pilot project began in
Kibera, one of
Nairobi's informal settlements, and is in the planning phase. Block by Block is based on an earlier initiative started in October 2011,
Mina Kvarter (My Block), which gave young people in Swedish communities a tool to visualize how they wanted to change their part of town. According to Manneh, the project was a helpful way to visualize urban planning ideas without necessarily having a training in architecture. The ideas presented by the citizens were a template for political decisions. == References ==