More than a decade since the release the innovative original, Partners for Livable Communities announces the release of the second edition of its CommunityEmpowerment Manual. Expanded and reorganized by former staff member, Carly Grimm, the new edition builds on the tried-and-true approaches to community development showcased in the original, and invigorates the document with new case studies and a new section that helps readers better understand the challenges to livability—aging population, deteriorating infrastructure, and declining local economies—that exist in American communities.
The first edition of the manual was published in 1999, and was the culmination of four years of work and collaboration with communities across the United States and Europe, with support from Bank of America, the Healy foundation, and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. It was met with great success and featured in Governing Magazine.
The new edition could not come at a better time, as more communities are facing fiscal constraints. To maximize assets over the next decade, communities will need to be more self-sufficient, and the Community Empowerment Manual, with its focus on making the most of community resources, is a valuable tool for pursing livability from a local level.
More than just a primer on livability, the Community Empowerment Manual is a workbook for community development that educates readers about leadership strategies, effective collaboration, creating regional partnerships, and developing and realizing a vision. The Community Empowerment Manual is a valuable guide for:
Citizens—both those currently engaged and those frustrated by lack of action
"So, what is the point of public art? ” This question, posted online by Voice of San Diego's Kelly Bennett, came in response to the city of San Diego’s recent pull from public art funding; after its release on Twitter the post quickly turned viral. Responses to the post ranged from views of public art as superfluous and its place in the public sphere as luxury, to public art as necessary for community well-being, safety, and cohesiveness.
Many of us believe in the arts as integral to the livable community— but when measuring out our federal dollars, the arts are usually the first to go. But what if we could prove that in addition to instilling neighborhood pride and value in our public space, public art could actually serve as a deterrent for crime and violence?
For his contributions to creating more environmentally, socially, and financially sustainable communities through his work as a developer, academic, and author.
On September 22, 2010, at the Building Livable Communities forum , Beth Osborne, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Transportation Policy at USDOT and James Lopez, Senior Advisor to the Deputy Secretary at HUD, answered some questions about the new HUD-DOT-EPA Partnership for Sustainable Communities. The Partnership should be seen as a model or case study for other government agencies. The Partnership for Sustainable Communities does not need to be the only interagency government partnership focused on the development of livable communities.
Osborne and Lopez explained why only HUD, DOT, and EPA were involved and pointed to some of the logistical problems that have arisen in the developing of the Partnership. Simple communication between agencies is made difficult with modern email firewalls and other cyber security screening processes. Also, when you have too many people working on the same issue, efficiencies break down and it becomes difficult to please everyone. There is a saying, “too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the soup.” In other words, too many people working on a single project can ruin it. Minimizing these difficulties improves the overall effectiveness and efficiency of the collaboration.
“When you start with everything, you start with nothing,” Beth Osborne, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Policy at the US Department of Transportation (DOT), stated of the importance to narrow the focus of a livability agenda in order to be effective.
At Partners’ recent forum on September 22, “Building Livable Communities: Creating a Common Agenda”, many discussed livability’s ubiquitous nature on both macro and micro levels. The panelists spoke of the need for access and affordability to the many factors that serve as part of a system to create livable communities: transportation, housing, and education, to name a few. But when does a boundless agenda for livability, incorporating all relatable factors that serve to shape a livable community, become unproductive? In brief, what is the ‘tipping point’ for livability?
President of Partners for Livable Communities, Robert McNulty, was quoted in The Wall Street Journal article “Artists vs. Blight ,” discussing artist occupations of blighted homes and neighborhoods in transitioning communities such as Cleveland and Detroit.
What if your refrigerator gave you breakfast suggestions? Or your bed checked you for health problems while you slept? Our aging population is spurring the creation of a host of friendly household gadgets, including everything from floors that absorb the impact of falls, to mattress pads that assess vital signs and alert health care professionals to any irregularities. Outside the home, technology is in the works to create personalized radio frequency identification cards, which can tell grocery shelves to lower to your eye level or help gym machines adjust to your ability.
The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is exploring advances like these, along with the physical and emotional experience of aging, in their project “Brave Old World.”
Abandoned properties are encountered with rising frequency in these difficult economic times. Most people simply see them as an eyesore or a threat to security. However, there are some organizations, such as Boston Street Lab and Chashama, which have found this situation to be an opportunity to get a little creative.
For many community leaders, neighborhood development can feel like a high-stakes guessing game. A new tool from Chicago’s RW Ventures firm could help end this frustration, by providing a way to strategically analyze urban neighborhoods.
The tool is part of RW Ventures’ 20 year “dynamic neighborhood” study, and will allow development leaders to tap into neighborhood assets, understand their pattern of development, and strategically identify “key interventions to drive change.” The analysis draws on statistical evidence of successful neighborhoods in order to predict which strategies work best for different types of neighborhoods. Armed with this concrete knowledge, neighborhood development can be less like a shot in the dark, and more like a well-timed business decision.
Weekly workshops that bring together a diverse audience of participants in order to promote multi-cultural, intergenerational interaction within the community.
