"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.

Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has"


Margaret Mead, Anthropologist
(used with permission)



"If you don't like the news .... go out and make some of your own !!"

Wes "Scoop" Nisker, Newscaster



INTRODUCTION

Government is a slow and tedious process. While it often includes citizen and neighborhood involvement, non-governmental, private organizations have created movements and interesting groups which can create positive change in our cities and towns.

I am fascinated by the way groups are created and how they influence public decision making. This blog merely recognizes them and forwards the description of these groups from their own websites.

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Data Driven Detroit

Location: Detroit,

Website: www.datadrivendetroit.org

From the Michigan Metropolitan Information Center at Wayne State University, to the Southeast Michigan Information Center at United Way, there have been many initiatives to collect and democratize data about Detroit and its neighborhoods.

In 2008, The Skillman Foundation and The Kresge Foundation awarded City Connect Detroit a $1.85 million grant to incubate Data Driven Detroit (originally named the Detroit-Area Community Information System).

Within its first year, D3 was selected by the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership (NNIP). NNIP is a select group of organizations that have built advanced and continuously updated data systems to track neighborhood conditions in their cities.

In December 2012, after an extensive period of review, discussion and due diligence, Data Driven Detroit became an affiliated program of the Michigan Nonprofit Association.

This move has strengthened D3′s operations and increased our exposure to a statewide network of member nonprofits and philanthropic organizations. Data Driven Detroit provides accessible, high-quality information and analysis to drive informed decision-making.

D3 believes that direct and practical use of data by grassroots leaders and public officials promotes thoughtful community building and effective policymaking.

As a “one-stop-shop” for data about the city of Detroit and the metro area, D3 provides unprecedented opportunity for collaboration and capacity building in Southeast Michigan.

D3 incorporates features of “neighborhood data systems” that have been created in a variety of cities across the country. Such systems have been recognized and championed by the Urban Institute, which created the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership in 1995. NNIP partner communities incorporate a number of different models of data access and analysis.

While their structures, staff, and delivery mechanisms may differ, they share a set of principles that D3 supports:

- Design indicator systems for the explicit purpose of changing things – not just to monitor trends.

- Develop a single integrated system that can support one-stop shopping.

- Develop indicators at the neighborhood level – not just for the city as a whole.

- Build a data “warehouse” from which indicator reports can be derived – not just a set of files on indicators.

- Serve multiple users but emphasize using information to build capacity in poor communities.

- Democratize information – help stakeholders use information directly themselves.

- Help stakeholders use data to tackle local issues, but do so in a way that leads toward more comprehensive strategies.

- Use information as a bridge to promote collaboration.

- Use available indicators but recognize their inadequacies – particularly the lack of sufficient data on community assets.

- Assure integrity in the data and the institution that provides them.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Transportation for America

Location: Nationwide

Website: www.t4america.org

Transportation for America is an alliance of elected, business and civic leaders from communities across the country, united to ensure that states and the federal government step up to invest in smart, homegrown, locally-driven transportation solutions. These are the investments that hold the key to our future economic prosperity.

Strong local economies are the foundation of a strong national economy. Across the country, business, civic and elected leaders understand that a strong transportation network drives the success of our local economies.

They know local employers need to be able to recruit and retain workers both within and from outside their home communities, and they need efficient ways to get their goods to market. Workers of all incomes need affordable, dependable access to jobs. And our cities, suburbs and towns must be able to attract talent and compete on a global scale.

In communities across the country, local leaders are responding to new economic challenges with innovative plans for their transportation networks. But alone, they lack the resources, and the control over them, to build and maintain the infrastructure their economies demand. At the same time, transportation funding at all levels of government is shrinking rather than growing, due to slackening gas tax receipts and budget cuts.

This situation threatens America’s ability to compete economically. Transportation for America is bringing people together to change it, in Congress and state houses across the nation.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

IAP2-USA

Location: Nationwide

Website: www.iap2usa.org

Transportation for America is an alliance of elected, business and civic leaders from communities across the country, united to ensure that states and the federal government step up to invest in smart, homegrown, locally-driven transportation solutions. These are the investments that hold the key to our future economic prosperity.

Strong local economies are the foundation of a strong national economy. Across the country, business, civic and elected leaders understand that a strong transportation network drives the success of our local economies.

They know local employers need to be able to recruit and retain workers both within and from outside their home communities, and they need efficient ways to get their goods to market. Workers of all incomes need affordable, dependable access to jobs. And our cities, suburbs and towns must be able to attract talent and compete on a global scale.

In communities across the country, local leaders are responding to new economic challenges with innovative plans for their transportation networks. But alone, they lack the resources, and the control over them, to build and maintain the infrastructure their economies demand. At the same time, transportation funding at all levels of government is shrinking rather than growing, due to slackening gas tax receipts and budget cuts.

This situation threatens America’s ability to compete economically. Transportation for America is bringing people together to change it, in Congress and state houses across the nation.

Monday, November 18, 2013

Car-Free Day Vancouver

Location: Vancouver, BC

Website: www.carfreevancouver.org

Commercial Drive Festival launched the first community- driven Car-Free Festival in Vancouver as a response to the provincial government’s Gateway Program, also known as the Port Mann/Highway 1 Improvement Project. Organizers also wanted to create a community festival at a time when there were few such events in the city.

The Festival was wholly volunteer-organized and presented, involving over 30 core organizers and 300 volunteers. It was an enormous success, bringing over 25,000 people out to celebrate the community and party in the street.

After that, the Festival happened in 2006 and twice in the summer of 2007, snowballing in popularity and attracting up to 40,000 people per day. Clearly, car-free days were an idea whose time had come.

The first annual Car-Free Vancouver Day, on Sunday June 15, 2008 ushered in the next phase in this bold experiment that had been gradually happening in Vancouver for many years. It took the car-free meme to the whole city, and represented the next level in our evolution toward healthy communities, authentic cultural celebrations, and car-free streets.

On that day, FOUR communities presented their own Car-Free Festivals: Kitsilano, West End, Main Street, and Commercial Drive. Each Festival was envisioned and organized by the local core organizers, and each had a unique flavour.

Keep watching our website for more details on the individual Festivals. And then, choose your Festival and get involved! You can be an organizer, a pod-head, a spontaneous participant, or a day-of volunteer (for an hour or two, or for the whole day) — whatever turns you on. You don’t necessarily need to volunteer where you live — and of course, you are free to rove from Fest to Fest throughout the city, and get a taste of different neighbourhood celebrations. You will meet great people, have lots of fun, and become part of the future of our magical city.

The City of Vancouver, both staff and elected officials, has been enormously supportive of this initiative, and continues to encourage us to create the city of our dreams. We thank them for their vision and support.

fresh-moves

Location: Chicago, IL

Website: www.freshmoves.org

Step inside a reconditioned city bus in Chicago this Thanksgiving, and you can buy cranberries and green beans where commuters once sat. The Fresh Moves mobile produce market-- which inspired other pop-up grocery stores across the country-- plans to reopen on the weekend of November 23, intent on proving to larger supermarkets that there’s a market for fresh produce in food deserts.

"It hasn’t been an easy to get this far. Some critics have questioned whether having access to supermarkets is the real public health problem, citing studies that say even when new grocery stores are added to a neighborhood, people often still make unhealthy choices.

“When you change someone’s perception of kale and they find out it can be tasty, they want to come back to you. It’s different than a fast food restaurant where it’s all about transactional count. We recognize in some cases we have to take a slower approach to educate our consumers so they become repeat customers."

Steven Casey, who first founded Fresh Moves with a single recycled city bus in 2011 and is working to get it back on the road next week, agrees that access isn’t the only critical factor. “If you’ve been without healthy food for so long, you might not necessarily know what to do if someone sells you that food today.

There’s an education or re-education process, I believe, [that] is a strong component of what we need,” Casey says, explaining that Fresh Moves provides cooking demos and recipe cards.

But Casey says he still believes access is equally important--and just because a store might look relatively close on a map doesn't mean it's easy to get there. "If you’re relegated to public transportation, your view on accessibility is much different than those of us with cars. I live in a neighborhood that’s considered a food desert. And the only difference between myself and some of my neighbors around the corner is that I do have a car. I know that when I don’t have a vehicle, as much as I may have a desire to go to that wonderful store downtown, it’s not fun taking one or two buses to get there, and then turning around and carrying back groceries on the bus, or paying to take a cab, or trying to fit it into your schedule if you work late at night."

"Fresh Moves, instead, brings food as close to someone’s front door as possible, as often as possible. With targeted stops at schools or other community centers, a few times over a day, the bus can bring a single-aisle produce department within reach of hundreds of people.

The organization chose to repurpose an old bus not just because it was mobile but because it could be used all year long, unlike a converted food truck used for a similar mobile grocery in Oakland, California. “A day like today in Chicago, where it’s 45 degrees, raining, and maybe snow showers, you can’t stand outside and shop,” says Casey.

The bus was also easy to get. Every 12 years or 250,000 miles, buses are retired, because the federal government will fund replacements at that point. So buses might sit unused on a lot, or be scrapped for parts. When they still run, they can be sold cheaply, or, in Fresh Moves’ case, donated.

Fresh Moves operates like a social enterprise, Casey says, but is registered as a nonprofit so that it can get donations like the buses and other philanthropic support. Since fruits and vegetables are low-margin items even for large grocery store chains, it would be challenging to run as a business alone.

Even with some outside funding, the organization struggled to manage operations, and after parting ways with its executive director in August, decided to temporarily stop running to figure out a sustainable operating plan.

Now, the organization plans to partner with others to help reduce some of its costs. "We had challenges of going to normal produce houses as a little vendor, because then you’re buying at straight market prices," said Casey. Experts in produce sourcing will help try to bring those expenses down, and others with extra freezer space will share with the organization.

Casey is eager to get his buses back on the road, saying the community needs them, and the benefits aren't just about health. "We’re bringing back civility to the shopping experience--we don’t have bulletproof glass, we don’t have a security guard, we try to make the environment as open and welcoming as possible," he says.

"For the community, we need to restore our services. They want us back. There aren’t stores out there today. Here we are on a cold November day, and there’s somebody who last November was able to shop. This November--until we reopen--they’re not."

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Grow Community

Location: Bainbridge Island, WA

Website: www.growbainbridge.com

As we looked around ourselves, and began to think, really think, about the way we live and the way we want to live, we found that there are many things still to be done.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have solar panels on the roof? Wouldn’t it be great if the kids could safely walk to school? And the library? And the ice cream store? What if we had more time to garden, and wouldn’t it be nice to know the neighbors?

So we began to ask our friends, if you could describe the perfect neighborhood, what would it look like? And we found so many answers. So we set out to create a new kind of place to live. For ourselves and for others.

Over the last year, we have created a vision of a connected urban community, where people of all generations and a diversity of economic means can live mindful of their impact on the planet, in a neighborhood where environmental, economic and social sustainability are equally valued and where all people can focus on creating abundance, in their relationships to others, to nature and to the community.

But our vision is not complete. There is still so much to do, so much to learn and so much possibility. Each day we create more ideas and challenge ourselves to do better.

We’ve figured out how to provide net-zero energy homes. But what about transportation? We think we’ve figured that out too, but we’ll learn more as we test out our plans. How can we most effectively reduce water use? Increase local food consumption? What kind of playgrounds will our children like best?

How shall we design the community center so it really does become that welcoming ‘third place’ where neighbors gather and connect?

Please join us in helping to shape this community, with your ideas, your vision, your enthusiasm. It takes a village. Let’s grow one.

Saturday, November 9, 2013

Talking Transition

Location: New York, NY

Website: www.talkingtransitionnyc.com

For the first time in 12 years, New Yorkers will have a new mayor. On January 1, 2014 the mayor-elect will be inaugurated to become the leader of the largest city in the United States. He will inherit a $70 billion budget, assume responsibility for administering city services and overseeing public agencies.

As the city's chief executive, he will manage 250,000 employees - including teachers, police officers, fire fighters, and sanitation workers - and enforce all city and state laws in the five boroughs.

Aside from these important administrative responsibilities, the new mayor will directly represent the 8.3 million people who call the city home. To do that effectively, he must listen to what they have to say.

Talking Transition seeks to give New Yorkers a voice during this transfer of power, creating a more transparent process. Whether it's in the tent, at the mobile “tents,”, or in public spaces across the city, this project invites New Yorkers to come together and re-imagine what the city can and will be in the future.

By joining the conversation, New Yorkers can share their ideas and concerns, inform the new mayor's agenda, and continue to move this city forward.

It’s time to start talking.

Want to organize a discussion in The Tent?

Talking Transition is offering small grants to organizations with 501c3 status to produce interactive and engaging events in the Talking Transition tent. Funds would support the staff capacity and/or production expenses involved in convening a multi-part, ninety minute or longer, interactive event. The convening organization would also need to demonstrate their capacity to mobilize at least 200 people for participation.

The foundations sponsoring Talking Transition will evaluate each proposal.

Thursday, November 7, 2013

Friends of the Cabildo

Location: New Orleans, LA

Website: www.friendsofthecabildo.org

Friends of the Cabildo is a private non-profit volunteer group that provides financial and volunteer support for the Louisiana State Museum, its projects and its properties.

Since incorporating in 1956, the Friends of the Cabildo has grown into a large statewide membership organization, a dynamic and motivating force in broadening and supporting the aims of the Louisiana State Museum.

New Communities Program

Location: Chicago, IL

Website:

The new communities program is a long-term initiative of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation/Chicago to support comprehensive community development in 16 Chicago neighborhoods. The 10-year effort seeks to rejuvenate challenged communities, bolster those in danger of losing ground, and preserve the diversity of areas in the path of gentrification. NCP neighborhoods span a cross-section of Chicago's South, Southwest, West and Northwest sides. Each effort is led by a neighborhood-based lead agency that coordinates programs among other local organizations and citywide support groups. The 14 lead agencies (one of which serves three adjacent communities) have at their disposal:

- Two full-time staff positions: an NCP director and an organizer.

- A pool of loan and grant funds to mount short- and long-term initiatives. The funds, distributed by LISC on a competitive basis, serve as seed money to leverage other public and private resources.

- Technical support and peer-learning opportunities, including planning expertise, trainings, access to subject-area experts and meetings with peers in other NCP agencies.

Lead agencies are encouraged to forge partnerships with other nonprofit groups, businesses, government and residents to address issues such as affordable housing, prisoner re-entry, cultural programming, education reform, and community marketing.

All NCP neighborhoods have undertaken a structured community planning process that involved local residents and leaders in the creation of strategies to improve the community's quality of life.

Three communities completed plans in a pilot phase of the program, from 1998 through 2002; most of the others participated in neighborhood planning programs leading to a quality-of-life plan between May 2003 and May 2005. A total of 3,000 people across the city participated in the meetings that produced the NCP plans, which were unveiled May 18, 2005 during a downtown ceremony attended by 500 residents and other partners including Mayor Richard M. Daley.

- Agencies involved in NCP will spend 10 years and perhaps more implementing their plans.

Creating local and citywide partnerships, communities are addressing issues including employment, parks and recreation, health care, housing affordability, commercial and retail development, child care, education quality, neighborhood aesthetics and personal security.

NCP is designed to strengthen communities from within - through planning, organizing and human development. The comprehensive approach helps broaden opportunities for local residents through better education, broader job choices, safer streets, new economic opportunities and stronger personal finances. This strengthened community is better equipped to take advantage of larger market forces:

- Attracting retail and housing development to areas that have experienced little new construction.

- Achieving economic balance in neighborhoods where working-class residents fear displacement by higher-income newcomers.

- Creating stronger connections to metropolitan-wide business, employment and educational opportunities.

A central NCP strategy is to create active communication among participating communities, lead agencies and support organizations. By documenting the activities and sharing strategies and methods through a newsletter, meetings, training sessions, web site and other methods, NCP hopes to multiply the impact of each neighborhood's work while advancing knowledge of community development practice.

More than $47 million has been committed to NCP by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and LISC/Chicago to provide lead agencies with staffing, planning assistance and project seed money. Additional funding has been secured from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Bank One (Chase), Joyce Foundation, Living Cities, Mayor's Office of Workforce Development, Partnership for New Communities, Polk Bros. Foundation, State Farm Insurance Companies and the Steans Family Foundation. LISC/Chicago and the lead agencies will seek the additional private and public support necessary to implement the quality-of-life plans. NCP is one of four demonstration projects of Living Cities, a partnership formerly called the National Community Development Initiative.

Fab Lab DC

Location: Washington, DC

Website: fablabdc.org

Give ordinary people the right tools, and they will design and build the most extraordinary things.

That’s the idea behind Fab Labs, which originated at MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms by Professor Neil Gershenfeld, who teaches How To Make (Almost) Anything.

Fab Labs provide access to prototype tools for personal fabrication, like a personal computer that can output functional objects instead of images on a screen.

The labs have spread from inner-city Boston to Africa and Norway, with projects tackling applications in areas including healthcare, agriculture, housing, and communications.

FAB LAB DC serves and fosters the creative community by providing access to digital fabrication technology, rapid prototyping, and the global Fab Lab network.

In the spirit of MIT’s Fab Lab community outreach project, FAB LAB DC brings a high-tech,fabrication laboratory/community workshop to the heart of the Nation’s Capital advancing creativity, innovation, and collaborative projects.

Fab Labs enable people to use technology to create, experiment and produce, shifting the paradigm away from people merely “consuming” technology toward using technology to create solutions.

With a focus on life-long learning and emphasis on investigative teamwork, FAB LAB DC provides a range of educational opportunities for people of all ages, including access to the international Fab Lab network and Fab Academy, which extend opportunities for information sharing, research, and broader social impact. FAB LAB DC is for local community members, life-long learners, inventors, entrepreneurs, creatives, and professionals.

With its location within walking distance and in view of the U.S. Capitol Building, FAB LAB DC will also serve as a model for the nation’s leaders in policy, government, and industry, to experience, first hand, Fab Lab’s grass-roots approach in developing technical education and literacy, promoting innovation, launching inventions, and incubating new businesses.

Untapped Cities

Location: International

Website: untappedcities.com

Untapped Cities is a community of over 200 contributors uncovering the best of urban life from cities around the globe.

Our writers and photographers are in the streets, unearthing quirky places, stories and events.

We’re interested in what’s unseen–whether hidden, unnoticed or lost in the past–and how it informs city life now and in the future.