Public Participation

This piece from Next American City looks at a variety of urban planning-focused events being hosted by cultural institutions, and how those events help to include the regular citizen in the process of planning.

August 16, 2010 - Next American City

Planner Sam Gennawey details a public participation exercise he regularly uses, taken from the ideas of Christopher Alexander, that makes complex ideas simple for public understanding.

August 16, 2010 - Sam Gennawey

Beth Novick, author of Wiki Government, says that today's technology invites us to "rethink not only our democratic institutions, but our democratic theory."

August 15, 2010 - WorldChanging

The City of Los Angeles Department of Planning and Department of Transportation held a first-ever public online participation webinar Thursday, July 20, 2010. The city used the opportunity to experiment with web conferencing technology, and will survey participants after the event to evaluate the success of the experiment. A webinar is a web conference, where participants can access a virtual meeting using a computer, and Internet connection. Participants access a website to see the presenter's computer screen, and also listen to the presenter through the computer's speakers, or using a telephone.

July 20, 2010 - Chris Steins

Jeremy Rosenberg of Next American City examines how the people of Los Angeles get together to watch the world cup, in the absence of any primary public meeting space.

June 16, 2010 - Next American City

Former Planetizen managing editor Christian Madera proposes that videoconferencing could revolutionize the public meeting because the entire proceedings could be "broken up and digitized."

May 7, 2010 - Next American City

Architect and urban innovator Andrés Duany has a new bone of contention: the usurping of the planning process by the public during the approval stage for new projects. Managing Editor Tim Halbur reports from Cambridge, Massachusetts.

April 26, 2010 - Tim Halbur

In a Chicago Tribune op-ed, Alderman Joe Moore explains why he is letting residents decide how to spend his $1.3m ward budget, through the first Participatory Budgeting process in the US.

April 1, 2010 - Chicago Tribune

In a Chicago Tribune op-ed, Alderman Joe Moore explains why he is letting residents decide how to spend his $1.3 ward budget, through the first Participatory Budgeting process in the US.

March 31, 2010 - Chicago Tribune

Even when the circuitry is beyond us mere mortals, DIY comes to the rescue  In town meetings we use the Internet for a wide variety of uses, from photo walls to display images collected during our WalkShop tours, to brainstorming and voting with our AnyWare suite of tools, to collecting ideas using Google Docs or Google MyMaps at round tables.  The latest WiFi cards are making connecting to the Internet possible in places where the Internet normally is not available.

March 30, 2010 - Ken Snyder

Planners in Cary, North Carolina were tasked by the mayor to make their complex planning process more accessible.

March 29, 2010 - Tim Halbur

Governing's Stephen Goldsmith looks at the trend of smart phone applications related to city governance and civic improvement. He sees huge potential in these early stages of a trend that's likely to experience exponential growth.

March 25, 2010 - Governing

The city of Miami is putting its 311 phone system and the civic problems it's used to report online, enabling residents and city officials to easily track local problems.

March 12, 2010 - Government Technology

Last year I had the opportunity to teach a graduate course on "Web 2.0 for Policy and Planning" at the University of Southern California's School of Policy, Planning & Development. Although I am co-teaching a different class this year, I have updated my course website with a revised course syllabus and extensive reading list on Web 2.0 and planning, based on what I learned from teaching the course in Spring, 2009.

March 11, 2010 - Chris Steins

We may not be driving flying cars, but the futuristic city is here -- in the form of a more intimate connections, communication technologies and social interactions. Former Planetizen Managing Editor Christian Madera discusses.

February 13, 2010 - Next American City

A local Council in Scotland is considering convening a Citizens Panel to consider the next round of difficult cuts to local budgets. This opinion piece debates whether public involvement is a value-added, or if it just slows down decisionmaking.

February 10, 2010 - The Inverness Courier

Washington County, Utah invites the public once a year to see what transportation projects are in the works and talk to planners and engineers. The meet-and-greet has proved highly popular and a way for information to flow both ways.

February 9, 2010 - The Spectrum and Daily News

In a region where public participation is often excluded from the planning process, urban planners are hosting a charrette in Abu Dhabi.

January 26, 2010 - Al Bawaba

The U.S. Federal Government has released a new online tool to help in the collection of feedback and ideas from the general public.

January 22, 2010 - CNET

This article looks at how a Connecticut journalist used the online nuisance reporting tool SeeClickFix to get locals involved in his newspaper's newsgathering and storytelling.

January 8, 2010 - The New York Times