New Community Paradigms

Heartland Democracy engages directly with Midwestern youth, independent thinkers, centrists, and folks who are uninvolved in their community and politics.  Using shared values and critical issues as the bases and sparks for discussion, Heartland Democracy targets specific participants, institutions, demographic segments, and geographic areas for exchanges in which we weave together a coherent set of values, stories, history, facts, and ideas to reach the emotional factors so decisive in the shaping of mindsets. 

Direct democracy in California was born in the hopes of bringing the people into the governance process, but it has led to a kind of audience democracy. Voters have become consumers of television sound-bite campaigns and new-media messaging, not authors of the laws they give to themselves.

Our goal is to provide public finance data, tools and training to local community-based organizations to strengthen their public interest and organizing campaigns. Equity in Public Funds partners with and increases the ability of community-based organizations to produce analyses of City and County fiscal inequities and advocate for reform.

During a panel discussion at The Economist's World in 2012 festival, former U.S. Treasury secretary Robert Rubin, Morgan Stanley CFO Ruth Porat and Brookings Institute fellow Eswar Prasad agreed that 2012 would be the year that defines the path that the U.S., European Union and emerging economies for the next decade.

Urban planning in the 20th century sprang from that horrified perception of 19th-century cities. Oddly, it began with Ebenezer Howard. In a slim book, self-published in 1898, the man who spent his days transcribing the ideas of others articulated his own vision for how humanity ought to live-a vision so compelling that half a century later Lewis Mumford, the great American architecture critic, said it had "laid the foundation for a new cycle in urban civilization."

One placemaking premise is to avoid politics and pedantic debate (such as "new" v. "landscape" urbanism)-one of the tenets of the movement is efficiency, often without "starchitecture" or directed urban redevelopment. Rather, placemaking is frequently a low-cost, facilitated exercise which helps enhance people's faith in their cities and neighborhoods.

Ready or not, decision time is upon us. Many of these highways were built to last between 40 and 50 years - they'll soon need to be either repaired or reinvented. "What's going to happen in the next 10 years when we need to make a big investment to prevent them from collapsing like the one in Minneapolis?" asks John Renne, professor of urban studies at the University of New Orleans.

My recommendation to Bloomberg and other mayors would be to open the analytics to the public so that everyone has access and can contribute solutions. Perhaps a lesser concern, keeping this type of information private gives incumbents insider information when assessing what issues voters are most concerned about.

Facebook page for Economic Development in San Gabriel Valley, CA + World

The Center for American Progress held a forum on economic growth and equality. After opening remarks from Vanessa Cárdenas and Angela Glover Blackwell, members of the first panel talked about the link between economic growth and equality. Economist Emmanuel Saez in his presentation used graphs to show the relationship between equitable distribution of wealth and economic growth.

Compass Blueprint offers a complete toolbox of planning services, trainings, videos, and a other resources to help planners, local governments, and citizen groups do their jobs more effectively.

LAANE is a leading advocacy organization dedicated to building a new economy for all. Combining dynamic research, innovative public policy and the organizing of broad alliances, LAANE promotes a new economic approach based on good jobs, thriving communities and a healthy environment.

LAANE is a leading advocacy organization dedicated to building a new economy for all. Combining dynamic research, innovative public policy and the organizing of broad alliances, LAANE promotes a new economic approach based on good jobs, thriving communities and a healthy environment.

Since the late 1980s, computer scientists and engineers have been researching ways of embedding computational intelligence into the built environment. Looking beyond the model of personal computing, which placed the computer in the foreground of our attention, "ubiquitous" computing takes into account the social dimension of human environments and allows computers themselves to vanish into the background

OUR PHILOSOPHY IS UNIQUE in the consulting industry. We were founded by Clayton Christensen, professor and author of the best-selling books The Innovator's Dilemma and The Innovator's Solution, but we are not a typical "guru" firm. We have developed a series of market-tested tools and techniques that enable growth through innovation, but we are not a "black box." We deliver compelling workshops and speeches, but we are not "trainers."

IAP2 has a wealth of resources available assist organizations, decision makers, policy makers and practitioners to improve the quality of the public participation work.  The following resources are protected by copyright by the International Association for Public Participation and may be used for information purposes.

This article is about power structures in society and how they interact. Specifically it is a guide to seeing who has power when important decisions are being made. It is quite old, but never-the-less of great value to anyone interested in issues of citizen participation. The concepts discussed in this article about 1960's America apply to any hierarchical society but are still mostly unknown, unacknowledged or ignored by many people around the world. Most distressing is that even people who have the job of representing citizens views seem largely unaware, or even dismissive of these principles. Many planners, architects, politicians, bosses, project leaders and power-holder still dress all variety of manipulations up as 'participation in the process', 'citizen consultation' and other shades of technobable.

Cities have a central role to play in tackling climate change. By fostering a sense of shared purpose, the C40 network offers cities an effective forum in which to work together, share information and demonstrate leadership.

The C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40) is a network of large and engaged cities from around the world committed to implementing meaningful and sustainable climate-related actions locally that will help address climate change globally. Our organization's global field staff works with city governments, supported by our technical experts across a range of program areas.