I heard an interesting story this weekend on NPR’s The State We’re In. In “Street Warriors”, host Jonathan Groubert talks to evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson about The Binghamton Neighborhood Project in Binghamton, New York. Wilson mentions that residents of Binghamton, himself included, don’t really have a great sense of community and the city hasRead… Read more »
Once again I’ve been intrigued by the similarities between online and offline communities with the topic this time focusing on the handling of community events. And I wonder how much the “real” and “virtual” communities can learn from each other. If you work for a city, your experience is probably very similar to mine –Read… Read more »
By Katherine Parker, Associate Consultant, MPA’12 In early March, we completed a six month engagement with a coalition of seven synagogues along Pennsylvania’s Old York Road and presented our final action plan for the revitalization of the area. Although the project is at an end, it feels much more like a new beginning – withRead… Read more »
It’s a Tuesday night and it’s sprinkling outside, much to my dismay, as I head over to City Hall to witness what is expected to be a long and onerous council meeting. As I near the chambers it becomes obvious that a large swath of people have already begun to pour out onto the patioRead… Read more »
This past week my co-founder Manu and I headed to Sacramento for the annual California WateReuse conference, a policy/trade event that focuses on promoting the development of recycled water and desalination. Those in attendance included some of the industry’s best engineers, a wide array of public agencies and utilities, and of course, the public outreachRead… Read more »
Big news happening. I was fortunate to be part of the selection committee for the Health Justice CT Challenge that got kicked off at the end of 2011. Basically Connecticut is growing leaders and innovators to reshape how health makes an impact in their communities. The purpose of the challenge was to open the ideaRead… Read more »
As a woman who has spent pretty much my entire career in the defense industry, I’ve never really felt like a part of the “gender gap” arguments about females working in a male-dominated field. National security – just like the military ranks themselves – have always been male dominated. There’s often good reason for thisRead… Read more »
Government, by necessity and obligation, must understand the competing interests and ideologies of the variety of identity groups that it serves. Put another way, those who are in charge must always have an ear to the ground if they want to remain in charge. That being said, there is no silver bullet in terms ofRead… Read more »
Now how true do these observations hold for America and elsewhere? The Canberra Times kindly published an article of mine in the Public Sector Informant magazine. The informant itself is not available on line so I’ve provided it in pdf below. You sometimes hear people complain about how the press alters the what they sayRead… Read more »
Original appearance on opensource.com. Joining the open source (and CityCamp) movement has been one of the best experiences of my life. I’ve been involved with open source for over a decade, but I never got involved in a community project in any significant way–until I found CityCamp. I haven’t submitted a single line of code,Read… Read more »