technology for participatory planning and civic engagement
DESCRIPTION
Talk given by The Open Planning Project's Nick Grossman at the Open Cities Conference in Washington DC, 10/6/2009.TRANSCRIPT
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: [email protected] @nickgrossman on twitter
• FixCity Bike Racks: http://fixcity.org
• This presentation: http://slideshare.net/openplans