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Social Media Dialogue to Boost Community Regeneration
Tristan Parker
A project using technology to engage local people to help reinvigorate a run-down inner city shopping area is one of 31 new “community hubs” being funded by the national digital inclusion network UK Online Centres ( http://www.ukonlinecentres.com/ ).
The initiative will use Facebook, Twitter and SurveyMonkey (an online survey creation tool) to gauge local opinion, spread awareness and stimulate conversation about regeneration in the Cherry Tree estate in Romiley, an area of Stockport, where there are a number of closed-down shopping units.
The organisation funded is Starting Point, a community partnership which has already revitalised a run-down shopping precinct in Stockport, Manchester. Other community hub projects will focus on libraries, community centres and local government buildings.
“It’s about how organisations within a community can use technology as a catalyst or supporting tool to support ideas and create social action or change within that community,” Amy Gadd
simonmart on 04 May 12Across the country, hundreds of local governments, public power utilities, non-profits, and cooperatives have built successful and sometimes pioneering telecommunication networks that put community needs first. These communities are following in the footsteps of the publicly owned power networks put in place a century before. We watch history repeating itself as these new networks are built for the same reasons: Incumbents refusing to provide service or charging high rates for poor service.