XUV - uH bench - open source public bench
nice plans for a bench made from pallets for anyone doing some pop-up anything/ community building/ community engagement stuff etc! stuff like this is easy and cheap to build, not to mention fun!
Posts tagged "community engagement"
Looks topical! The film examines the conflicts between politicians, developers and communities when it comes to issues such as property development, economic growth, jobs, regeneration, gentrification and community!
We are proud to present a sneak peek at The Domino Effect. Coming Soon
The Domino Effect is a documentary film that explores the process of real estate development in New York City. The film digs deep to uncover the complex networks of banks, developers, politicians, and non-profit organizations that shape our cities. During the last decade, the North Brooklyn communities of Williamsburg & Greenpoint, have experienced the negative impacts of excessive luxury development and gentrification, more than any other neighborhood in NYC. Told through the voices of longtime residents, this film conveys the personal impact of real estate development in their community while shedding light on issues encountered by residents of cities across the country. Will your neighborhood be the next to fall? Full release Summer 2012.
The Enabling City: Place-Based Creative Problem-Solving and the Power of the Everyday
A nice toolbox from The Enabling City demonstrating projects that encourage people to engage and participate in the places where they live.
Start Up Street - What will you start up?
I absolutely love the ambition of this! It’s a very commendable example of using local skills, knowledge and assets to make something bigger!
Architecture+Design Scotland have launched ‘Start Up Street” in Stirling (Scotland), in response to an ideas workshop attended by the members of the local community, business owners and the Council, to examine how to generate sustainable economic activity and employment opportunities locally in Stirling.
The ‘start up street’ in Stirling is a local street that currently has 7 empty shops. They plan to use the underutilised assets to set up a hub to explore creative solutions that could stimulate and develop local enterprise and economic activity and deliver positive outcomes. To set the ball rolling the video also gives some great examples of various projects that could be launched that focus on health and well-being.
The High Street is a key element of our settlements. Its role as the central space of villages, towns and cities has been challenged by changes in the pattern of retail, of leisure, and living. In many High Streets in many settlements there are vacant and underutilised assets. In some cases the High Street is under pressure. It is an issue of concern for many, from businesses, to citizens, to investors.
Meeting the challenge of how to re-think the High Street as a central place requires creative thinking about how we make the best of what we already have. The communities in Stirling City Centre recently participated in a co-design exercise to re-think the centre of the City. The Urban Ideas Bakerybrought together citizens, officers of the Council, businesses and other stakeholders to look at how the people resources of the city and the spatial resources might be managed differently. Out of this thinking emerged an idea to re-consider King Street as a ‘start up street’, which enables business start ups, scaling of small business and curating events and activities in the public space. The proposal is to explore how people with ideas, talents and capabilities in the city can be matched with the available spaces in the city, supported by a community of interest. This idea is being tested in a prototype phase to engage a wide range of interests in exploring how the idea works, what is feasible, what is not. The objective is to use this practical method of testing the idea to develop a live project, to start small and build up a sustainable, self supporting enterprise.
The project is open to anyone with an interest in High Streets, how they work, and how they can be enhanced. This short video explains the thinking behind ‘Start Up Street’, whats involved and how you can get involved.
Young Foundation: Community action toolkit
The Young Foundation have published an excellent community action toolkit to help local authorities and government engage with, empower and develop local communities
Use this toolkit to find out what people want from the Big Society: what makes people want to get involved in local action? What stops them from taking part. How to devolve power and money to communities. How communities can work effectively with local authorities and public agencies. And, what makes people feel like they belong in a place.
Interesting short video from a TED talk given by Dave Meslin on the barriers to real engagement and participation in public society. His first point, on participation in planning is so true…the current standard for “engaging” is so complex and dry…an approach like the one he suggests would surely mean real transparency, and make information easily accessible to all. Such simple changes, easily and cheaply implemented could make a massive difference to the way we engage with the world around us - real democracy.
Dave Meslin’s talk about 7 barriers that keep us from taking part in our communities
Connected Communities: How social networks power and sustain the Big Society
Traditional approaches to community regeneration which define communities in solely geographic terms have severe limitations. They often failed to deliver on key social capital improvements such as improving trust between residents or fostering a greater sense of belonging.
In this report we argue for a new approach to community regeneration, based on an understanding of the importance of social networks, such an approach has the potential to bring about significant improvements in efforts to combat isolation and to support the development of resilient and empowered communities.
Read the report here
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