September 27, 2018
Energy experts say more than half of expenses associated with adopting solar energy are related to “soft‐costs” such as financing, permitting, inspection, installation, and other costs unrelated to the hardware. By participating in the SolSmart program, more than 200 communities are showing how they are overcoming these barriers and making solar energy more affordable and easier for homeowners and businesses to adopt.
September 17, 2018
A growing number of communities are finding new ways to fully engage residents in efforts to promote sustainability, enhance livability and reduce the local ecological footprint.
September 28, 2018
Creating a local culture of engagement in Hampton, Virginia was a process of taking one step after the other, building on the success of the last. Just as a child learns first to crawl, then to walk and later to run, so too can any locality build a sustainable culture of engagement by taking little steps one after the other.
September 28, 2018
Libraries can play a vital role in supporting democratic practices. But to do so, the relationship between the library and the community must contain a communicative, dialogic aspect and not simply be one of providing access to information.
September 28, 2018
Volunteer (as opposed to professional) facilitators often bring unique perspectives and different ways of framing questions to public engagement efforts. They may also provide a level of passion and commitment that professionals doing their everyday work may not.
September 27, 2018
For more than 60 years, the All-America City awards have recognized American communities for outstanding civic accomplishments. In 2018, the National Civic League asked applicants for the award to describe in detail the civic engagement strategies they employed in their efforts to address local challenges. The result was a clearer focus on how communities engage members of the public in local problem-solving and planning efforts.
September 17, 2018
In the last decade experiments in democratic innovation have flourished across the country in city and local government agencies in every region, catalyzed by administrators committed to a more active citizenry. On issues such as crime prevention, affordable housing, urban planning, land use and conservation, utility and service provision, and even general budgeting, public participation is actively welcomed in to the work of government.
September 28, 2018
In the Silicon Valley’s largest city, the Office of Civic Innovation is creating an ambitious roadmap for using technology and public engagement to improve city operations, a roadmap that includes everything from setting up public broadband to monitoring traffic flow and streamlining hiring procedures.
