Category: Public Engagement

Storytelling Part II: Getting to Getting Things Done

Ben Brown
Ben Brown
First a review: In a post last month, I made a pitch for organizing community storytelling around getting stuff done. I acknowledged how hard it is to do that in the current political environment, which is increasingly an arena of competing tribal identities and mutually exclusive convictions: A community that has... Continue Reading
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Watch Your Words: Building support for walking and biking infrastructure

Scott Doyon
Scott Doyon Twitter Instagram Facebook
In my last post, I looked at the difficulty of getting things — like walking and biking infrastructure — done and how the manner in which we measure our accomplishments makes all the difference. Not just towards building momentum but towards building community. In short, it’s all about baby steps. But let’s... Continue Reading
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Plotting a Persuasive Story? Better have a happily ever after

Ben Brown
Ben Brown
On my PlaceMakers business card, my job title is “Storyteller.” I figured a graduate degree in English and a two-decade career in journalism gave me a certain amount of credibility in that department. What I didn’t count on, however, was what the title seemed to imply to most folks. To them, I was the spin doctor. “We’ve... Continue Reading
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Place Attachment as a Tool for Shaping Change

Scott Doyon
Scott Doyon Twitter Instagram Facebook
Gentrification gets a lot of attention these days, and rightfully so. Particularly as it relates to issues of displacement. No one (or at least no one of heart) wants to see anyone forced from their home and from the community they care for and that, oftentimes, cares for them. The dangled carrot of economic opportunity,... Continue Reading
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A Hurricane Response Lesson: Disrupt the cycle of futility

Ben Brown
Ben Brown
Those of us who spent extended time in coastal Mississippi and Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 are watching the weather and reading the news with a serious case of Groundhog Day. It’s rescue-recriminate-rebuild-repeat. Over and over again. (more…) Continue Reading
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Downtown Winnipeg Minecraft Lounge

Guest Contributor
Guest Contributor
Last summer in Winnipeg, me, my mother, a couple of my friends (Juca Shanski-de-Aquino and Weldon Scott), and the Downtown Winnipeg BIZ put together a Minecraft lounge. Now some of you have probably already read a blog last year that my mom wrote about this same Minecraft lounge. Her blog also included a piece about Pokémon... Continue Reading
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‘So All We Have to Do is…’ Call Bullshit

Ben Brown
Ben Brown
Chuck Marohn was in my town last week with his better-than-ever demonstration of the lies we tell ourselves about infrastructure finance. Chuck’s message and that of Joe Minicozzi prod us to get our arms around the math. And that’s a crucial message. But, jeez, our problem is way bigger. Thanks to the never-ending... Continue Reading
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Want to Improve Your City? Start taking pictures

Kaid Benfield
Kaid Benfield Twitter Instagram Facebook LinkedIn
In Chuck Wolfe’s absorbing new book, Seeing the Better City, he encourages readers to think with our eyes and communicate with visual imagery in order to improve our cities. With the proliferation of smartphone cameras and an endless array of easily accessible, web-based platforms on which to display them, virtually... Continue Reading
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Hey, Buddy: Adult friendships and the future of our communities

Scott Doyon
Scott Doyon Twitter Instagram Facebook
David Roberts over at Vox posted a new piece recently -- “How our housing choices make adult friendships more difficult” -- that really got me thinking. In it, he builds upon ideas previously explored in The Atlantic and makes a compelling case that forging new relationships as an adult -- the ones we characterize... Continue Reading
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Bubble Burst Strategy No. 1: Do something now

Ben Brown
Ben Brown
You know things are getting dicey when the outgoing president of the United States feels obliged to remind us there’s still hope for American democracy at about the same time the incomer is on Twitter alleging (again) that America’s democratic institutions are plotting against him. (more…) Continue Reading
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