New Community Paradigms

More than 1.3 billion people worldwide have no access to electricity, and 1 billion more only have intermittent access. Some 2.5 billion people - almost half of humanity - rely on traditional biomass for cooking and heating. Others consume significant energy from unsustainable sources.

Welcome to the official Facebook page of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, Rio+20. We are dedicated to promoting the themes and objective Conference, which takes place 20-22 June 2012 , in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Our goal is to provide you with a solution that is of the same quality as custom-built software and that does exactly what you need, for less than what you would pay for commercial off-the-shelf software that only gets you 80% there. We know we can do it, and we think you should too.

For California to meet the challenges of the coming decades - in the areas of healthcare, education, the environment and economic growth, among others - the state will need to dramatically change how public decisions are made and how public dollars are spent.

The California Economic Summit represents an unprecedented effort to develop a cohesive job creation and competitiveness plan with input from regional and state leaders. A series of Regional Forums in early 2012 lead up to a statewide event on May 11.

ParticipateDB is a collaborative catalogue for online tools for participation (often referred to as tools for web-based engagement, online participation, e-participation, e-consultation, online dialogue, online deliberation etc.).

Empowered.org is a free online platform for social enterprises and not-for-profit organizations around the world to mobilize its members/supporters, fundraise, and coordinate initiatives through a dynamic social media site. What sets Empowered apart, is its high degrees of functionality around multi-chaptered organizations and high levels of customization that allow for closed platforms for participating organizations.

SeeClickFix is an online and mobile tool that allows citizens to report and monitor non-emergency issues in the public space. Issues that are reported through the website are recorded on a map for everyone to see and interact with. Anyone can receive email alerts on the issues based on a filter by geographical area and keyword.

Regulations.gov is your source to view and comment on Federal government regulations (a.k.a. rules) from nearly 300 agencies. To make AN OFFICIAL COMMENT ON A REGULATION please visit www.regulations.gov. Your comments do make a difference in Federal decision-making.

Imagine Cape Town filled with people empowering people where every Capetonian, rich or poor, with a dream and the will to pursue it, has equal access to the empowering information and support they need. That's Motivate Cape Town!

Involve are public participation specialists; bringing institutions, communities and citizens together to accelerate innovation, understanding discussion and change. Involve makes a practical difference by delivering the highest quality public participation processes possible as well as undertaking rigorous research and policy analysis into what works.

If you work in the fields of public engagement, conflict resolution or community problem solving, the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation is here to help you stay on top of news, resources and goings-on in the field, and to connect you with other movers-and-shakers who share your interests.

Good Jobs First is the nation's leading resource center for grassroots groups and public officials seeking to make economic development incentives (we prefer to call them subsidies) more accountable and effective. We also promote smart growth and green jobs policies that benefit working families. We are based in Washington, DC and have an affiliate in New York.

BALLE believes in the power of local businesses to transform communities for the better by working cooperatively toward a shared vision. We imagine cities and towns of every size and political stripe engaged in shared learning to build community assets like sustainable agriculture, green building, renewable energy, community capital, zero-waste manufacturing and independent retail - what we call the building blocks of Living Economies. We envision a time when local economies not only generate community wealth, but also are catalysts for civic action, social diversity and ecological health -- for sustainable communities.

The first-ever comprehensive, collaborative, consensus Strategic Plan for Economic Development in Los Angeles County, a clear, comprehensive, collaborative strategy that guides job and business retention, expansion and attraction.

Serve.gov is designed to help Americans create and find opportunities to serve their communities and our nation.

Social Finance is a London based organisation created in 2007 with the express aim of developing an effective social investment market in the UK.

The MIT Senseable City Laboratory aims to investigate and anticipate how digital technologies are changing the way people live and their implications at the urban scale. Director Carlo Ratti founded the Senseable City Lab in 2004 within the City Design and Development group at the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, as well as in collaboration with the MIT Media Lab. The Lab's mission states...See More

Gapminder is a non-profit venture - a modern "museum" on the Internet - promoting sustainable global development and achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.

With his very honest, stark, and poignant perspective, Chuck deconstructed our nation's infrastructure maintenance deficiencies and compared our current pattern of development to a bonafide Ponzi scheme. For example, California needs an additional $37 billion per year just to maintain our existing highway system. Like experiencing Springsteen's "Nebraska" or Boston's City Hall for the first time, Chuck's message weighed heavily on the audience as he painted a bleak picture for our economic, social and cultural landscape.