Between 2013-2018, the Urban Dream Brokerage ran as an urban revitalisation platform, commissioned by four distinct New Zealand municipalities. The model: during a period of economic recession and commercial vacancy, original proposals from artists and non-profit communities were placed into urban retail sites, dependent on a broker’s negotiation. Following the closure of the Brokerage, a research colloquium was held with project makers to understand what had been created collectively as an entwinement ‘between people and space.’ Four common narratives between the project makers were found: the presence of hostile conditions for the creation of community; the opportunity for experimentation within vacancy, the cloaking of political action through art, and fourthly the observation that the revival of ‘dead’ spaces created a longer term value that was not transferred to the project creators. This article provides a quotation-rich overview of the colloquium through the frame of these narratives.