Building community capacity

1. There is an interesting email on a Ward 7 e-list about a presentation by Ginnie Cooper, the relatively new director of the DC Library system. The note-takers reported that Ms. Cooper said:

Community engagement: acknowledges library has not been transparent and forthright with any decisions on policy, spending, decisions, etc.; one way to improve communication is an improved website.

The need is for a lot more than an improved website...

2. An interesting contrast is a recent conference held in the City of Chicago brought to our attention by DC1974. According to the World Changing website in the article "Massive Change and the City":

In conjunction with the Massive Change exhibit that recently ended in Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art and the City of Chicago Department of the Environment organized a one-day symposium that brought together experts in urbanization, energy, evolution, information, wealth and politics. The symposium explored the impact of urban life around the world, and laid out visions for a sustainable urban future. Sustainable cities will be built from a mix of the disciplines these changemakers are armed with. We asked each of them the same question, and they gave us a really diverse, yet complementary set of answers.

The page features discussion from a number of the speakers.

Talk about trying to move issues forward and build people's knowledge-base. Too often I think things move forward without much in the way of research, thought, reflection, or consideration.

It's the nature of bureaucracy and administration to be narrowly focused, but it doesn't lead very often to substantive improvements, merely incremental fixes.

Index Keywords: civic-engagement