New Community Paradigms

If you are like us, you want to participate, yet attending a public meeting that requires physical presence is both time consuming and inconvenient. Plus, you want to contribute ideas of your own, not just listen to someone else tell you what's best. Adding MindMixer to your community-planning project will only enhance your experience, broaden the reach of participants in your community and allow you and others true freedom to infuse your own creative ideas into the process.

At the Design Management Institute we connect design to business, to culture, to customers-to the changing world. We bring together educators, researchers, designers, and leaders from every design discipline, every industry, and every corner of the planet. The results are transformational. Design that delivers competitive advantage. Design that raises the bar of performance, fit, and feel. Design that touches the heart and mind. Design that creates a unique and memorable bond. Design that changes the world.

The Carbon Tracker initiative is the first project of Investor Watch, a non-profit company established by its directors to align the capital markets with efforts to tackle climate change. The board of Investor Watch includes Mark Campanale and Jeremy Leggett. Investor Watch was founded in 2009 (Company No. 06888857)

Many of us remember a time when walking and bicycling to school was a part of everyday life. In 1969, about half of all students walked or bicycled to school.1 Today, however, the story is very different. Fewer than 15 percent of all school trips are made by walking or bicycling, one-quarter are made on a school bus, and over half of all children arrive at school in private automobiles.2

The Partnership for Sustainable Communities works to coordinate federal housing, transportation, water, and other infrastructure investments to make neighborhoods more prosperous, allow people to live closer to jobs, save households time and money, and reduce pollution. The partnership agencies incorporate six principles of livability into federal funding programs, policies, and future legislative proposals.

Some pro-development commentators are starting to suggest a different strategy: acknowledge that NIMBY fears are frequently well-founded and address them with changes in design, policy and process that respect their concerns.

PACE's mission is to inspire interest, understanding, and investment in civic engagement. PACE'S goals are... to build a community within philanthropy committed to vigorous debate and action around encouraging participation and engagement in community, civic, and political life; to inspire and incubate strategic collaborations with policy makers, nonprofits, business, and the media to support active citizenship; and to increase the quantity and the quality of philanthropic investment in civic engagement strategies.

The Davenport Institute for Public Engagement and Civic Leadership supports and promotes public participation as a way of developing more creative and sustainable policy decisions, and more engaged and informed citizens. To fulfill this mission, we assume three roles as we work with California's cities, counties, school districts and civic organizations:

Since our founding as a multi-partisan and non-profit organization in 2005, The Davenport Institute (formerly Common Sense California) has worked to engage the citizens of this state in the policy decisions that affect our everyday lives. It is our firm belief that, in today's world of easy access to information, and easy connectivity to others, California's municipal and education leaders are seeking ways to involve the residents of their communities in the important issues they confront. Done legitimately, this new kind of leadership produces better, more creative policy solutions and better, more engaged citizens committed to the hard work of self-governance.

The Street Plans Collaborative is an urban planning, design, and research-advocacy firm. We strive to create high-quality public spaces, and believe that the key to reversing the harmfulmn effects of suburban sprawl is to promote compact, walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods. We thrive on working with our clients, partners, and other likeminded organizations to improve the quality and function of the built environment. We seek to increase the effectiveness of multi-modal transportation as a means to creating more competitive and sustainable 21st century towns and cities.

CommunityMatters prepares communities to re-create themselves. Many people are already speaking up, reaching out and acting on their ideas, and those efforts need support. We offer the tools, resources and expertise that communities need, when they need them. Whether you're interested in building consensus for a school budget, using values to drive local decisions, or identifying technology to facilitate conversation, we stand ready to help.

The Open Streets Project is a collaboration between the Alliance for Biking & Walking and The Street Plans Collaborative. The goal of the project is to share information about open streets and increase the number, size, and frequency of initiatives occurring across North America.

The Sustainable Economies Law Center (SELC) provides essential legal tools -- education, research, advice, and advocacy -- to support a transition to localized, resilient economies. Our work focuses on practices that promote justice and sharing, including barter, local currencies, cooperatives, community enterprises, local investing, cohousing, urban agriculture, and other innovative economic stra...See More

The SmartCode is a unified land development ordinance for planning and urban design. It folds zoning, subdivision regulations, urban design, and optional architectural standards into one compact document. Because the SmartCode enables community vision by coding specific outcomes that are desired in particular places, it is meant to be locally customized (also known as "calibrated") by professional planners, architects, and attorneys.

The Codes Study is a collaborative effort led by Hazel Borys and Emily Talen, and contributed to by many public and private planners, tracking the prevalence of form-based codes worldwide. As of November 2012, we've tracked 433 codes that meet criteria established by the Form-Based Codes Institute (FBCI), as well as an additional 14 form-based guidelines. 252 of these are adopted, with others in progress. Even though form-based codes are 30 years old, 82% have been adopted since 2003.

We build tools to get cities on the path to better technology, help citizens get the responsive government they should expect, and scale up small discussions to city-wide change. We are an impartial, informed guide to civic technology, incorporating technology, transportation and city planning, an open-source approach, and the standards knowledge necessary to deliver valuable tools to our clients.

The Economic Roundtable is a non-profit, public benefit corporation organized to conduct economic, social and environmental research that contributes to the sustainability of individuals and communities. The Economic Roundtable seeks to respect the needs and goals of all neighborhoods and communities of interest affected by its work. Research findings are made readily available to public policy makers, affected communities, and the general public.

The Collective Action Toolkit (CAT) is a package of resources and activities that enable groups of people anywhere to organize, build trust, and collaboratively create solutions for problems impacting their community. The toolkit provides a dynamic framework that integrates knowledge and action to solve challenges. Designed to harness the benefits of group action and the power of open sharing, the activities draw on each participant's strengths and perspectives as the group works to accomplish a common goal.

The Presencing Institute (PI) is an awareness-based action research community for profound societal innovation and change. The presencing process is a journey that connects us more deeply both to what wants to emerge in the world and to our emerging, higher self.