RSS feed to the RSS Reader of your choice!Over the last weeks I finally found the time to put together a video outlining our eMeetings using the video footage we collected during our community workshops for the Routt County 2030 project.
Today I was invited to host a webinar for the EBM Tools Network talking about our civic engagement work. I boiled down the longer presentation I usually give to leave room for a very interesting Q&A session afterwards.
Play audio file to listen to a recording of the presentation >>
In my work with PlaceMatters and APA’s Technology Division, I am constantly looking for more effective tools and techniques to engage citizens in land use planning and community building. The continual emergence of innovative GIS and online tools has made the search exciting and rewarding.
As technology becomes more an integral part of planning and public outreach around planning, the need for a “creative touch” becomes increasingly important. While technology can increase the quality and quantity of public input, it can also diminish the quality of human interaction and creativeness. In particular, we look for activities that use technology but also engage youth, utilize art materials, maps and other visuals, and encourage storytelling.
Last month, PlaceMatters helped run five workshops in Routt County Colorado as part of their Vision 2030 process. We used keypad polling and content management web technologies to collect ideas, let people identify what qualities of community character are most important and most threatened, and vote on the issues submitted to the larger group. The use of wirelessly linked laptops at each table and keypads for each participant enabled us to have four feedback mechanisms packed into a single evening. These tools illustrate the rapidly changing science of public participation. 
“These two trees have been standing next to our school since it began. They remind us how change can be beautiful if done right.” -Madison King
Nonetheless, two of the more rewarding and engaging activities of the evening were sharing photos and statements provided by school children in the community, and going around the table and sharing favorite memories of living in Routt County. These two activities were critical in adding energy and excitement to the evening. In preparation for the first activity, we had local schools engage in an art project tied to the initiative. Students were given disposable cameras to take pictures of the things they like most in their community and to add statements. These images were then shown at the public workshops both as a PowerPoint and posted on a physical display in the room. The photos and statements (example to the left) reminded people why we are engaging in a conversation about the county’s future – to sustain the elements of community we find so important and pursue activities that continue to build a sense of community for future generations.
The second activity involved going around the table and having people share their favorite memories of living in the valley. For those who were not shy to speak into a microphone, we had inexpensive microphones attached to the computers at each table and collected stories digitally. In the end we collected over 100 stories, which will be available on a rotating basis on the Vision 2030 media site.
Without these two activities we would have missed great stories and information about what makes a place special. As science and technology play a more prominent role in public gatherings, it is critical also to identify creative and artistic activities that balance the technical tools.
This evening my wife, Beth Conover, will appear on a televised panel discussion on "Immigration and Sustainability" aired on Rocky Mountain PBS's Colorado State of Mind, hosted by Greg Dobbs. The panel includes former Gov. Dick Lamm, former Post columnist Diane Carman, and State Rep. Michael Garcia (D-Aurora). An mp3 of the program is already available at the following link.
My wife worked for Denver Mayor John Hicklooper and created the Greenprint Denver program. The topics being discussed are immigration and sustainability and to what extent these issues are linked. While, immigration is a real issue that will require new policies and creative thinking, I would argue it is the weapon of mass distraction when it comes to thinking about what needs to be done to make the U.S. more sustainable.
The League of Conservation Voters recently did an analysis of all the Presidential debates on national TV ("What Are They Waiting For?", League of Conservation Voters). In total, 2,679 questions were asked at Republican and Democratic debates. Of the, 2,679 questions, illegal immigration was the topic of 165 questions while the words global warming and climate change came up less than 25 times. The words “global warming” actually tied with questions about UFOs (three times). Arguing that immigration is an environmental issue while ignoring climate change is like focusing on the energy consumed by the light bulb in your refrigerator while keeping the door open.
As planners, we need to incorporate global warming into our work. The way we plan our cities and towns has a major impact on our energy footprint, whether it’s creating communities that support alternative modes of transportation, building energy efficient homes and buildings, or planting trees and protecting open space as carbon sinks, planning impacts energy use for decades.
The Presidential Climate Action Project recently issued a 10 page Presidential Climate Action Plan, encouraging the next president to focus more seriously on climate change. The report states:
We must recognize that national climate policy and national energy policy are inextricably linked. The United States must make a deliberate and rapid transition away from carbon-based fuels, whether they come from the Persian Gulf or from domestic sources. We must turn with unprecedented speed to a future of energy independence, resource efficiency, renewable energy technologies and low-carbon fuels. Public policy must support only those technologies and resources that simultaneously stabilize the climate and enhance national energy security.
We must acknowledge that global climate change is much more than an environmental issue. It is a threat to national security because an unstable world is a breeding ground for extremism and terrorism. It is an urgent economic issue in which the price of action is much less than the costs of delaying, or doing nothing.
… We must recognize not only the threat of climate change, but the enormous opportunities that we can capture by addressing it. The urgent worldwide demand for clean energy technologies is arguably the greatest entrepreneurial opportunity the United States has ever known. As the world’s leading innovator, we can and should become the world’s leading supplier of the technologies and products that will help all people in all nations achieve dignity and a decent standard of living, without contributing to climate change.
I couldn’t agree more, and yet immigration is getting a disproportionate share of attention when it comes to discussions about national security, the environment, and sprawl. Smart Growth America conducted a study to investigate the linkages between sprawl, immigration, and population growth. Less than a third of sprawl development can be attributed to population growth (natural, legal immigration, and illegal immigration combined). Sprawl and its negative impact on the environment is mainly an issue of poor planning and the developer interest in building large lot single family houses. As planners and citizens we help keep the focus on issues of more long-term strategic importance.
This blog entry was also posted on Planetizen Interchange
This evening my wife, Beth Conover, will appear on a televised panel discussion on "Immigration and Sustainability" aired on Rocky Mountain PBS's Colorado State of Mind, hosted by Greg Dobbs. The panel includes former Gov. Dick Lamm, former Post columnist Diane Carman, and State Rep. Michael Garcia (D-Aurora). An mp3 of the program is already available at the following link.
Yahoo just added a community suggestion board feature on its Localsite for two California cities where citizens can post and deliberate about local issues. People rate the suggestions, comment on them, subscribe to posts about particular issues and spread the word by printing flyers, adding events and forwarding posts to neighbors.
From Webware.com: "...for instance, on the Sacramento "Neighbors" site,people have suggested that the city needs more downtown gas stations,more urban farms, and a dog park. It turns out the Sacramento BicycleKitchen is seeking volunteers and a group is volunteering to help withpainting projects.
The pilot test is also running for San Carlos, south of San Francisco.Following a three- to six-month trial, the feature will roll outnationally, Yahoo said.
"We're providing a forum for the community to airconsiderations," which ideally will lead to action, Frazier Miller,general manager of Yahoo Local, said on Wednesday. "We think people arevery passionate about their local community. This is a Web 2.0 site forpeople to talk about local community issues."
It's interesting to see big players jump on the hyperlocal bandwagon. Also, I'm fascinated by the overlap with e-democracy.org's Issues Forums. The interesting question will be: Is simply offering the right features enough to build community and to be heard by decision makers?
The Orton Family Foundation just released a RFP to help them build their Community Almanac - an online mapping platform that helps communities to capture their assets or heart&soul.
From the RFP: ... as stories, pictures and videos emerge during communities’heart and soul articulation processes, and as technologies ever simplify thedigital capture and depiction of such information on maps, the Foundation wouldlike to offer the ability for its project communities and communities at largeto utilize simple open source or Web 2.0 technology to build online, digitalcommunity almanacs. These community almanacs would be digital maps (perhapsGIS-derived, but not requiring active GIS to use) to (1) depict the communityor county in which the project is located, (2) "easily" collect,display and manage community stories, pictures, graphics and videos throughuploads by people in the community, and (3) make these stories and picturesreadily accessible to all citizens through hotlinks on the map and/or otherintuitive interface components.
Read the full RFP document here >>
