technology for participatory planning and civic engagement

Technology for Participatory Planning and Civic

Engagement

Nick GrossmanDirector of TOPP Labs @ The Open Planning Project

Open Cities Conference — Washington DC, 10/6/2009

hi.

TOPP is a civic technology dot-org

We create software, build open source communities,

and advocate for smarter, more livable cities

How we work

•TOPP consults with the civic sector to build open source software

•We are a social enterprise — all revenues are reinvested in core product development

Open source approach

“Ordinary citizens have more to offer than voting or answering polls. People

can work together to gather and analyze information, and even make

decisions.”

— Beth Noveck, US Deputy CTO for Open Government

from “Government by the People” in Rebooting America

“A growing willingness to engage with the underlying code of the democratic process could eventually manifest in a

widespread call for revisions to our legal, economic and political structures

on an unprecedented scale”

— Douglas Rushkofffrom Open Source Democracy

I’m a pilot.

1200 new bike racks in 2009

GOAL:

Let citizens help plan

IDEA:

Results

•Racks are cited and pre-vetted by citizens

•Less work for DOT to manage the process

•Citizens have clear channel for input

But wait...

Citizens

Government

See John Geraci’s “Four Pillars of an Open Civic System”http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/06/the-four-pillars-of-an-open-ci.html

Open Government Platform

So, what can a bike rack tell us

about participatory planning?

1) Start small…

… and grow from there

More meaningful & complex issues

Deeper agencypenetration

City plans

Planning studies

Services

etc...

Information

2) Rethink your timing — iterate

Ideate

Design

Build

Review

Adjust

3) Think “platform”

What’s next?

Keep in touch!

• The Open Planning Project: http://openplans.org

•Nick Grossman: nickyg@openplans.org @nickgrossman on twitter

• FixCity Bike Racks: http://fixcity.org

• This presentation: http://slideshare.net/openplans