Today Only - Early Registration Discount to RMLUI’S 21st Annual Land Use Conference!
Don’t miss this deal! Our newest sponsor, RMLUI is offering a $25 discount, but there is only one day left to take advantage! If you need continuing education units, that’s a $900 value for less than half the price, depending upon your classification.
The Complete Package: Four Community Toolkits You Can’t Live Without
The web is chock-full of community planning tools, resources, websites, and guides. The biggest challenge sometimes seems to be sorting through them all to find the resources that are truly valuable. Here are our picks for three comprehensive guides and toolkits that every community ought to bookmark. They’ll take you through the whole process of building stronger, more engaged communities, from communicating with the public to making sound decisions and then taking action.
Hester Street Collaborative: Empowering Young Residents to Shape Their Own Environment
If you’re walking through New York City’s Chinatown and spot an out-of-the-ordinary cart, you’ll be looking at one of Hester Street Collaborative’s latest projects devoted to using design as a tool for social change.
Getting Technology into the Open: Local Challenges & Global Solutions
In 2009 we had an idea, to bring together a group of global cities to share their challenges with the international technology community. Our hypothesis was that a solution to any challenge is out there already, and that by finding it we can learn and avoid re-inventing the wheel. Since then, the Living Labs Global Award has become the world’s most significant call for solutions, in its current edition 21 global cities call for technologies to improve the lives of 110 Million citizens.
Shifting Roles for Public Libraries: From Supporting Player to Community Engagement Leader
When you think of the most democratic place in your neighborhood where resources are universally available, does one government entity immediately come to mind?
Developing Digital Commons for Cities
There is a little-known struggle going on right now over how a new series of “top level domains” (TLDs) on the Internet shall be used by cities of the world. TLDs are the suffixes at the end of Web addresses, such as .com, .org and .edu. The international body that oversees TLDs is expected to announce a new series of TLDs in 2012 that would give cities their own TLDs (e.g. .nyc or .paris). The new TLDs could make it easier for people in the same metropolitan areas to find each other and interconnect on the Internet and in physical spaces.
ECOSProject: A Sustainable Future for Chittenden County
Last year, the community of Chittenden County, Vermont embarked on an important project: ECOS Project is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to engage citizens, organizations and municipalities in a conversation about the future of each one of the communities within this Chittenden County region.
Study Indicates That Using Citizen-Run Community Websites Can Enhance Public Involvement
The results of a survey conducted by Networked Neigbourhoods in 2011 are revealing that local government leaders are paying more attention to neighborhood websites than ever before. The UK consultancy’s survey results shows that local council officers and elected members consider neighborhood websites to be the most useful online channels, above others such as Facebook or Twitter.
Study Reports That Using Citizen-Run Community Websites Can Enhance Public Involvement
The results of a survey conducted by Networked Neigbourhoods in 2011 are revealing that local government leaders are paying more attention to neighborhood websites than ever before. The UK consultancy’s survey results shows that local council officers and elected members consider neighborhood websites to be the most useful online channels, above others such as Facebook or Twitter.
Increasing Public Participation in Rural Planning & Community Development
A community planner from the “Back 40”, working on a multi-jurisdictional planning process for a small, rural community recently posed this question on Cyburbia. Planner.tk, a local design firm associate and community planner with a passion for 'saving the environment', inquires about how to drum up successful public participation in their county of less than 30,000 people. Insights and ideas came in from fellow Cyburbia members regarding useful techniques in community development as well as unique challenges faced by planners focused on rural areas.
Civic Commons Marketplace Offers New Perspective on Which Engagement Software Really Works
New apps are coming out every day, but how does a local government find out about the latest technology? How do they gain access to the newest, most innovative ways to improve the lives of their citizens? Civic Commons has recently launched the Civic Commons Marketplace. The marketplace is a database of civic software brought together to help government personnel find the online engagement tech tools to best fit their city’s needs.
2012 Ted Prize Awarded to “The City 2.0”
For the first time the Ted Prize has been awarded to an idea rather than a person. The 2012 Ted Prize has been awarded to “The City 2.0.” The Ted Prize winner receives $100,000 and also "One Wish to Change the World." The prize ties in with the TED community's assembly of expertise and resources, and works towards collaborative initiatives that will influence millions.
Harnessing the Power of Story to Shape a City's Future
Every place tells a story. But, most don’t do it coherently or intentionally. The tricky thing about stories is that even if a city or a downtown doesn’t want to be telling one, it matters not, because they are telling a story anyway. So, how do you quantify a place’s story, and what can you do with it?
OhSoWe: Helping Community Groups Share More, Consume Less, & Save Money
Solutions to the problems associated with over-spending, clutter, and mass consumption just may lie within our own neighborhoods. One easy way to explore exactly how we can share skills and services locally comes to us through the online collaboration platform for neighborhoods, OhSoWe.com.
Online Resources for Community Building and Public Participation
We’ve been keeping our eye on "Community Engagement", a LinkedIn group that encompasses discussion on community building, education, public participation, participative democracy and working in partnership. One of the most popular ongoing discussions has revealed some of the group members’ go-to websites for community engagement in terms of urban planning, support for citizen dialogue, and innovation. Here’s a list of the highlights:
Outreach Mobility Network: Engaging The Local Community About Transportation Needs
A need like transportation is everywhere, and it affects everyone. More and more of our community has reached a point of not being able to drive, not having the financial ability for transportation, or not having enough public transit available to them. Understanding that has lead us to meet with community leaders, senior centers and their participants, and people with disabilities to find out exactly what their needs are and how we, as a community, can address those needs.
Designing Geography Part III: The GeoDesign Framework
Carl Steinitz, professor of landscape architecture at Harvard University, first described how the GeoDesign Framework worked by posing it as a series of six questions relevant to landscape change. The first three questions describe the world as it is and assess its condition (the assessment process). The last three questions describe the world as it could be, evaluating proposed design alternatives and their impacts (the intervention process).
Top 5 Most Popular EngagingCities Posts of 2011
We hope all of you have had a joyous holiday season, and from all of us here at EngagingCities, we wish you a prosperous and happy New Year! In conclusion to a great 2011, here’s a quick look back at our most popular posts, according to our web analytics data, from this past year. Cheers - more to come in 2012!
Artists Reconsider Their Roles in Our Society Through Residency Program
Making art in the public is no longer just placing an object in a public plaza, a monumental sculpture in a park or a memorial sculpture. Public art can be integrated into the landscape or digitally into the fabric of a building. Or, art in the public can be seventy artists doing performances on Main Street over a short span of time.
New Field Guide Helps Local Officials Plan for a Stronger Democracy
The National League of Cities (NLC) has recently created a toolkit called, “Planning for Stronger Local Democracy: A Field Guide for Local Officials” with the purpose of guiding city leaders to cultivate a culture of transparency and accountability to also address and resolve issues.