National Civic Blog

What Kids Can DO

The nonprofit What Kids Can Do is looking for stories of “middle and high school-aged youth...making a difference in their communities, solving problems, being artists and performers, stretching themselves intellectually, pushing for change on issues that matter to them.”

Send a brief e-mail describing the project and a website link, if applicable, to info@whatkidscando.org.

Here are some examples from the past: http://www.wkcd.org/your_stories/index.html

Lifelong Communities

Here’s an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal on “retrofitting” suburbia to accommodate an aging population.

.......and developing, as seen on the drawing board in Fayetteville (GA), "lifelong communities." Such projects typically involve taking a neighborhood or site within an existing town or suburb and creating a compact, walkable community—one with alternatives to single-family homes, such as condominiums or row houses. Ideally, older residents in large homes will have the option of downsizing and remaining in a community where they can access restaurants, shopping and other amenities and services on foot.

Recommended Reading

By way of the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation blog this is a must-read article in the NY Times on open government and civic participation via the Internet.

"The headlines from Washington today blare of bailouts, stimulus, clunkers, Afpak, health care," writes columnist Annand Giridharadas.

But it is possible that future historians, looking back, will fixate on a quieter project of Barack Obama’s White House: its exploration of how government might be opened to greater public participation in the digital age, of how to make self-government more than a metaphor.

A comforting thought...

Federal agencies have been directed to release online information that was once sealed; reporters from Web-only publications have been called on at news conferences; the new portal Data.gov is allowing citizens to create their own applications to analyze government data. But the most revealing efforts have been in “crowdsourcing”: in soliciting citizens’ policy ideas on the Internet and allowing them to vote on one another’s proposals.

It would be nice to see more of this kind of thoughful journalism and less blare of bailouts, stimulus, etc.

All-America Cities Quilt in Phoenix

 

The completed 2009 All-America City quilt, making the rounds, is currently on display at Phoenix City Hall.

AAC quilting is a relatively new addition to the 61-year civic award program. It was initiated by NCL President Gloria Rubio-Cortės. This is the third AAC quilt.

Each finalist community is asked to contribute a square. NCL staffers get together for a quilting bee, and....

No. Just kidding.Gloria is the quilter. She patches it together and the quilt goes around the country to finalist and winning communities.

Summaries of Phoenix’s All-America City projects are after the jump:

So many choices

Popular political blogger Matt Yglesias seems to be channeling Richard Childs today with his lament about low turnouts in the New York City primaries.

Childs was the guiding force behind the 1915 Model City Charter, which launched the small council/professional city manager plan for local government, now the norm in most small to medium-sized cities and a number of large ones. Not New York.

Childs was also founder of the short lived "short ballot" movement, and I might add, a New Yorker. He believed that "only those offices should be elected which are important enough to attract (and deserve) public examination…."

Good Examples

Thanks to various colleagues and comment writers for their suggestions. I had asked for examples of local governments or communities using dialog, deliberation or democratic governance to resolve contentions issues.

Peter Levine of CIRCLE and Joe Goldman of AmericaSpeaks suggested the New Orleans UNOP process. That is a good example. After Katrina, there were several recovery planning processes going at once, but none seemed to be garnering public support. There was a lot of distrust and anger in the community and fear that some neighborhoods would be written off. Participation in the various processes was not very high.

A group of foundations helped fund a new effort with AmericaSpeaks, which organized a 21st Century Town Meeting, inviting thousands of New Orleans residents and doing outreach to people who had sought refuge in other cities (Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, etc).

Bottom line was they were able to reach consensus on a recovery plan, thus freeing up millions of dollars in funding.

A few good examples

I’m looking for vivid examples of local governments or communities facing polarizing issues comparable to the federal health care reform debate and resolving them through public participation, dialog or deliberation.

I’d like it to be something fairly specific—a difficult or complex policy decision rather than a visioning/ strategic planning process or dialog about a more general topic.

Can anyone think of any (hopefully recent) examples?