Mixed Media: Blending High-tech, Low-tech and Grassroots Techniques for Equitable Community Engagement
This interactive session will teach you how to effectively and equitably engage diverse stakeholders by diversifying your public outreach methods when transforming properties, neighborhoods and cities. You will walk away from this session with an understanding of how to incorporate new tools and practices into your community engagement initiative. You will have the opportunity to learn both innovative digital techniques and creative low-tech methods that will help you reach typically underserved groups and motivate a wide range of stakeholders to provide input. The session will present case studies from cities like Philadelphia, Detroit and Albany, New York; expertise from PlaceMatters, a leader in creative and digital engagement; and an opportunity to test the interactive brainstorming, visualization and mapping tools that have proven effective in these cities and others.
Speakers: Deenah Loeb, City Parks Association of Philadelphia, Regional Parks Institute; Sarah Reginelli, Capitalize Albany Corporation; Ken Snyder, PlaceMatters; Michelle Thompson & Brittany Arceneaux, WhoData
Tools You Can Use: Grassroots Movements Address Blight
Active residents and neighborhood groups keep the focus on revitalization in their communities in many different ways, instigating change from their neighbors and government leaders alike. Join community leaders from New Orleans, Louisville and other cities to hear about how grassroots efforts from visioning exercises to community mapping to collect and make information available and coalition development to change the tax lien structure change the systems that affect their communities.
Speakers: Pat Clark, Jackson/Clark Partners; Nick Kindel, Committee for a Better New Orleans; Eva Sohl, Freret Neighborhood Center; Anthony Smith, Network Center for Community Change; Jane Walsh, Network Center for Community Change
Greening Neighborhood Plans—Community-based Partnerships in Rochester and Pittsburgh
Going green is becoming a popular policy response to the challenges of right-sizing communities with substantial and sustained population loss, as urban greening and sustainability strategies show great promise for reclaiming vacant properties in the most distressed neighborhoods of our legacy cities. The workshop will discuss how community-based organizations, nonprofits, city planners and private developers are forging new partnerships to green neighborhoods in Rochester, New York (Josana Neighborhood Master Plans) and Pittsburgh (Lamier neighborhood). Presenters will highlight a menu of green reuse ideas and discuss in depth the challenges and the benefits of using a collaborative, neighborhood-driven planning process.
Speakers: Fred Brown, Kingsley Neighborhood Association; Bret Garwood, City of Rochester; Chris Koch, GTECH Strategies; Scott Page, Interface Studio; Joe Schilling, Virginia Tech
Economic Inclusion: Lessons Learned and Practices from Communities in Transition
With vigorous strategies being employed in ailing communities throughout the nation to tackle critical challenges – from stormwater management and transportation network improvement to greener housing and community development – there is a desire to nurture talent and grow economic opportunity in the very communities where the work is taking place. This session will explore what promising practices, policies and processes are taking place that allow people in communities that have been affected by the deep economic downturn to be participants in reviving their economy as well as their place. Among the questions to be explored are: how do we make economic opportunity inclusive of local residents, even those traditionally viewed as “hard to serve”? What do we believe is needed to achieve a scale of effort that is sustainable? In the next five years, who should be our principal government partner to get people back to work and help communities thrive? Who else should be at the table of community change and economic inclusion?
Speakers: David Jackson, The Center for Working Families; Scot Spencer, Annie E. Casey Foundation; Cheryl Washington, East Baltimore Development Inc.
Incorporating Place-Based Strategies into Neighborhood-Based Revitalization EffortsReturning vacant and abandoned properties back into productive use demands a strong neighborhood commitment as well as unique partnerships with supportive organizations, government and business. Using Cleveland and Youngstown as case studies, as well as a survey of the latest research, this workshop will look at community-driven, place-based strategies that can help return vibrancy to neighborhoods where vacancy and abandonment issues exist. This interactive session will allow participants the opportunity to put place-based strategies into the context of their own cities and regions through a session-wide question and answer discussion.
Speakers: Nigel Griswold, Center for Community Progress; Ian Beniston, Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation; Tyler Borowy, Land Policy Institute; Lilah Zautner, Neighborhood Progress, Inc.
Engaging the Next Generation of Community Advocates
Young community advocates are organizing and engaging their generation to create more equitable and sustainable cities. What are their tactics? Who are their partners? And how have they empowered people outside the establishment? By sharing first-hand experiences and individual objectives, this panel will discuss how cities can benefit from the energy and ideas of the next generation of local leaders.
Speakers: Ariella Cohen, Next American City; Sarah Filley, Popuphood; Jenga Mwendo, Backyard Gardeners Network; Dominic Robinson, CenterState CEO
