EngagingCities

The private sector is important, but tech needs to be on the forefront of government and policy efforts

The Maryland Planning Commissioners Association’s (MPCA) Outreach project is off to a hot start this summer. With two focus group meetings in the books and five to go, members of Maryland’s planning community are embracing the effort and expressing their opinions. The MPCA hosted the first meeting in Calvert County and the local press took…

From grassroots organizations to civic groups, government boards and nonprofits, there’s no shortage of organizations working to make Chicago a better place. But for Chicagoans who want to contr

Middle school is fertile ground because 11-14 year olds are increasingly concerned about fairness, justice, and their own thoughts on the world around them

Mayor de Blasio Brings NYC's First Neighborhood Innovation Lab for Smart City Technologies to Brownsville

During my undergrad, one course that really struck me was, “Urban Transformations, Affective Cartography”. We studied how urban landscapes are more than just spatial. We looked at how public space, specifically, urban space, affect our physical, psychological, and emo...

For the City of Albuquerque, open data has become a path to open communication with the community, making a more resident-friendly city, and saving public funds. Those efforts are proving so fruitful…

Learning about designing for the engaged citizens who vote in participatory budgeting

How a Vermont town is dealing with major questions about school district consolidation.

A discussion of play, meaning, smart cities and civic life with Eric Gordon, professor and director of the Engagement Lab at Emerson College.

Linn Davis makes the case for urban thinker Jane Jacobs as a grandmother of modern public

Americans are conflicted about urban development: somehow we’ve demonized both sprawl and density. Here’s the case for the hyperdense city: prosperous, sustainable, delightful.

Key examples from Winnipeg, San Jose and elsewhere.

Intellitics is a digital engagement consultancy. Our mission is to enable people, communities and organizations involved in community engagement and public participation to achieve stronger overall outcomes through the strategic use and the integration of modern information and communications technologies.

Our approach can best be described as objectives-driven, context-aware and tool-agnostic. Generally speaking, we’re less concerned

Our Director of Places and Communities, Nat Defriend sets out four key challenges for everyone who is committed to challenging inequality and empowering communities. The challenges are framed through the lens of our founder, Michael Young’s central concept of how change happens in places, and the three key roles we have identified in the construction... → Read More

We asked mayors, urbanists and other thinkers for their diagnoses, and most took the long view—looking beyond Donald Trump.

Fellows will work to influence demand for technology expertise among public interest organizations.

Groundbreaking research shows how the design and maintenance of public spaces can directly impact our civic health. This is a guest post by Suzanne Nienaber. Last week, the Center for Active Design (CfAD) published original research from the Assembly Civic Engagement Survey (ACES), a groundbreaking study to examine specific community design features that influence civic…

GrantCraft is a service of the Foundation Center that improves the practice of philanthropy by providing resources rooted in the practical wisdom of funders worldwide.

In sustainability’s triple bottom line of profits, planet and people, it’s people that tend to get the shaft. There’s an entire industry surrounding environmental advocacy and we can always coun

The typical hallmarks of a neighborhood convening were there: Parents dutifully pointing their smartphones at their teenagers dancing on the stage. Neighbors milling about…

Some of the world’s poorest countries will be hit hardest as climate change affects marine fisheries all over the world, according to a new study. The global fishing industry produces a total catch worth of about $90bn (£71bn) but the warming ocean temperatures are causing many valuable species to shift their usual ranges. The potential for water to hit temperatures lethal to corals such as Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, which support vast amounts of other marine life, is a particular problem.

Jonathan Andrews reports from Songdo which last week played host to the sixth New Cities Summit – ‘Thriving cities: the building blocks of urban wellbeing’.