New Community Paradigms

In a "cold" economic climate better to make cities better cities than to build icons. 

Copenhagen and Melbourne are among cities seen as being highly livable. Most of the work was done in cold economic times.  Creating Public spaces can be the least expensive, quickest, the most visible with the greatest impact for the greatest number of people that a city can do.  Lyon did this in an economic downturn.   

Copenhagen had economic issues in 70's and still put money into streets to lift spirits of the community.  

"In this City everything will be done to invite people to walk and bicycle as much as possible in the course of their daily doings." Keyword inviting. 

5 times more people can move per hour on a bicycle track compared to a lane for cars.  

Copenhagen credits bicyclists with saving 90,000 tons of CO2 every year. 

'Bicyclists live longer" "Danes who bicycle to work every day reduce the risk of serious diseases 50%"

Cities become destination in their own right now merely someplace to do other things like shopping.  

Copenhagen Streets: Sidewalks, 2 proper bicycle lands, street trees, 2 lanes for 2 way traffic and a substantial median to facilitate crossing the street. "We do not have to think and act as 1960's traffic engineers for ever - times are changing and traffic engineers are by now much smarter"

Sidewalks and bicycle lanes are taken across sidestreets making the city more comfortable and people friendly!

Copehagen in its 2009 New Public Life Policy strove to the "WORLD'S FINEST CITY FOR PEOPLE" among the goals having everyone to walk 20% more by 2015!!!

Copenhagen is a city where bicycling has become incorporated as an efficient, citywide transportation system.

Bicycles are taken straight through the street crossings and the lanes are marked with blue.  Bicycle signals turn green 6 seconds before car signals.

In Copenhagen 27% drive a car to get to work, 33% use public transit, 5% walk and 37% ride a bicycle.

Between 1994 and 2004 Melbourne City Center saw increases in Pedestrian traffic on weekdays by over 40%, Pedestrian traffic in the evenings by over 100% and stationary activities by over 200 to 300%

"Compared to most other mindsets, Vancouver's thinking has been counterintuitive because we rank walking at the top of the list followed by bicycling, transit and goods movement. The auto is last.

People are looking for a Lively City, an Attractive City, a Safe City, a Sustainable City and a Healthy City.

Economics and creating livable cities notes and comments on the video. Related blog post http://bit.ly/qXggrn    related wiki post http://bit.ly/nKYXWt 

The future of communities promises to be austere with less public funding available.  This means other means need to be used to create new community paradigms but the challenge is that any major change must take hold in the first 6 months or the existing organizational culture will put the brakes on the effort in self survival.

Major efforts also take 3 requirements. Leadership, Vision and Funding. I suspect for community paradigms the most important is Vision around which Leadership can be organized around to attain funding. One important focus for the community as a whole will be job creation.

These efforts need to work with outside usually private agencies and finding avenues of mutual benefit.  Having a cooperative government entity to work though can therefore be a plus.

Universities are changing their role in the working with communities.  They can be great resources without necessarily trying to establish political control. Students are also a great resource for community change. Different disciplines design, technology and business can be brought together to help create innovative ideas. They can, as should community paradigm organizations, challenge the status quo. At the same time there is a necessity for structure. The question is how to community paradigm groups achieve structure?

In creating community paradigms outcomes are as important as outputs.  Outputs is the metric by which an effort is judged and usually quantitative but outcomes are the changes to the community that come from implementing the effort. You leave behind something sustainable in new partnerships, new ways of working, new ideas.

The challenge is working with experts for innovative ideas without being snare by ideas that are politically or economically motivated to give another advantage or because they are expedient.

The very idea of endeavoring to bring about new community paradigms means creating an environment with more social capital from which to draw to achieve the desired shift in community paradigm requires a good deal of volunteering where the participants actively pursue their role as producers of democracy. Volunteering is not limited to formal volunteering but all altruistic forms of social interaction. It helps to increase democratic participation. Robert Putnam's work demonstrates that it also has positive economic benefit as well. See wiki page for more info. There does however need to be something more to the effort of creating a new community paradigm beyond volunteering. What that is not clear but it seems to rise out of the act of creating a viable community paradigm shift.

Danger of disconnect brought about by austerity measures cutting people of from the community. Thousand flowers wll bloom without government theory is without merit

Communities should do more than provide shelter they should provide opportunities and fundamentally economic opportunities. 

Need a more holistic view, local competency, asking private sector to work in totally different way from traditional way but business still wants government to get out of the way. 

Government can be overly reactive going for the flavor of the minute.

What is the relationship of virtual communities to real communities through the enabling of programs such as car sharing.  Can it reinforce the connections of communities?

Volunteering at its best is a face to face proposition

Liveable is not merely a means of economic advantage but also must include other factors including environmental. We seek what cities give us culturally and aesthetically 

This part of the discussion mirrors the work of Soul of the Community blog post http://bit.ly/qfZtt2 wiki post http://bit.ly/mXp0sF

Related wiki page http://bit.ly/owvSxB 

Related blog post http://bit.ly/o4gZVN

Ratings of the local economy increased in 2010; however, the economy is still not a key factor emotionally connecting residents to their communities.  Perception of local leadership is rated lower in 2010, but it is not a key driver in attaching residents to Long Beach.

If you are reading this then you are using the Diigo annotated page which is keeping the video from working. You can get to the original page by clicking http://vimeo.com/1675567; Related wiki page http://bit.ly/owvSxB 

Related blog post http://bit.ly/o4gZVN

What drives the soul of a community? How open it is to different types of people. How aesthetically pleasing it is.  What opportunities exist for social interaction.

The 3 aspects above provide for Residential Attachment which has a strong correlation with economic prosperity.