Community Engagement Presentation
“The problems we face are usually a lack of social cohesion or a lack of money—and a lack of money often also indicates a lack of social cohesion; not enough people care about the project to tolerate a tax increase to pay for it.”
Ask Better questions: See Better Results
The experiences of real people should guide our planning efforts. But their actions are the data we should be collecting, not their stated preferences. We should be designing something that responds to how real people actually live. It's a messier and less affirming undertaking.
More often than not, community engagement exercises are used as a mechanism to wrap a veneer of legitimacy around the large policy objectives of influential people. Most cities would be better off putting together a good vision statement and a set of guiding principles for making decisions, then getting on with it.
In this presentation, Norm Van Eeden Petersman will share best practices to get the ball rolling in your community to establish and work together on shared goals.
A Community Engagement presentation gives you a look at a different model of community engagement that is focused on the most immediate and accessible actions that can be taken to make life better in a community.
Topics Covered in this Presentation:
The impact of current approaches to community engagement and the increase in public dissatisfaction at the local level.
The difference between professional expertise and community insight and how the latter can guide the former.
The ways that meaningful questions enable residents to provide answers that will be acted upon.
How exercises to gain social license for projects should be designed and implemented.
The optimal place for citizen expertise and community feedback in the change-making process.
Presentation length: This presentation typically takes 60 minutes, with 30-40 minutes for speaking and 20-30 minutes for Q&A. It can be condensed to a 45-minute presentation if needed.
Please contact Strong Towns' Pathfinder, Michelle Erfurt, if you have any questions about this presentation or hosting a Strong Towns event.
Related Articles
A How-to Guide for Public Engagement
Why does TxDOT bother inviting Houston residents to come comment on the North Houston Highway Improvement Project…if they are going to make it so hard to actually do so?