🗞️ Our New Community Manager; Fireside Chat with James Rojas and John Kamp; & more
July 2, 2024 edition
EngagingCities shares outstanding work by our network of planners and changemakers, who actively involve their communities in creating better places and a brighter future.
Hello From Our New Community Manager
Hi, I’m Kelly, nice to meet you!
I’m so excited to take on the Community Manager role here at EngagingCities 😀
My vision for this next chapter of EngagingCities is a global community of professionals who share their expertise with one another to promote local civic engagement and create enjoyable, memorable, and sustainable places. The goal is to be a one stop shop for finding best practices, examples, ideas, events, and contact information related to community engagement in city planning efforts.
I bring over 15 years of community development and outreach experience working in both the private and public sectors in California, Colorado, and Texas. I love discovering and sharing creative and effective ways of engaging residents in the plans that directly impact where they live. In addition to my role with EngagingCities, I am also the founder of Cinnovation Studio, a consulting practice focused on innovative civic education and engagement within local government.
One of my passions is traveling and exploring cities around the globe. My vacation photo albums usually include just as many (or maybe more 😬) shots of streetscapes, bike lanes, and pedestrian paths as they do mountains, beaches, and sunsets.
Two exciting new features that we recently launched and I will be helping to build over the coming months are the Plan Showcase, a curated library of community-recommended or award-winning plans, and Fireside Chats, a podcast where I talk to the people behind the plans. Both of these features highlight how the community was engaged to help shape and bolster the planning effort.
I am ecstatic that one of my first Fireside Chat guests is James Rojas, who was very influential to me when I was working for the City of Anaheim during grad school and opened my eyes to unique hands-on methods of engaging residents. Check out the episode below!
My commitment with this newsletter is to deliver insightful and helpful content that resonates with you. Your feedback and engagement are crucial, and I encourage you to share your thoughts and ideas with me. If you have any specific content you’d like to see, topics and guests you’d like to hear on Fireside Chats, events to share, or just want to say hello, don’t hesitate to email me at kelly@engagingcities.org.
I look forward to engaging with you! 😄
🔥 Fireside Chat with James Rojas and John Kamp
Sensory Solutions: Overcoming Fear and Enhancing Inclusivity in Yolo County
James Rojas and John Kamp talk about engaging people through their hands and senses for the Yolo County Active Transportation Corridors Plan (YATC) which aims to create multi-use trails, enhance mobility, and break down barriers for low-income and minority residents in this rural California community. The project leverages public interest design of transportation services to address the needs of the region's most isolated and disadvantaged areas.
Main Takeaways
Community engagement through hands-on activities is essential for fostering creativity, collaboration, and breaking down barriers to participation.
The process of building models helps in extracting core values and guiding principles for the plan, ensuring the plan is rooted in the residents’ aspirations.
Engaging people through senses rather than language is an effective strategy to reduce fear, selfishness, and public speaking anxiety, creating a more inclusive and creative planning process.
Residents of Yolo County expressed their desire for walkable spaces and connections between communities, highlighting the universal desire for connection to the environment and the importance of integrating active transportation and green spaces into development.
The nuanced approach of the project ensures that community input translates into tangible outcomes, driving real change in the region.
“We remove a lot of those things that are barriers to entry in the process.”
👀 Watch the Fireside Chat on YouTube.
👂 Listen to the Fireside Chat on Spotify or Apple.
📘 Learn more about the Yolo Active Transportation Corridors Plan here.
Contact Information
📧 James Rojas: placeit.org or LinkedIn
📧 John Kamp: prairieform.com or LinkedIn
Further Reading
📚 Their book “Dream Play Build” delves into the psychology behind their engaging methods and provides a deeper understanding of how playful approaches can transform urban planning processes. Available in paperback and E-book formats at https://islandpress.org/books/dream-play-build.
📰 Other Featured Stories
✒️ The Local Art Of Placemaking
Art in public spaces contributes to society; whether incorporated into the built environment, blended with nature, installed as stand alone works of art or staged as performances. When it is accessible to all, art brings joy, contributes to mental wellbeing, catalyzes change, creates a sense of identity, attracts tourism and brings people together. Art and culture form the beating heart of our towns and cities.
— Shared by Sanaz Amidi
✒️ Event Ideas To Engage Your Community
If you want to foster an organic community feel, you’ll first have to learn how to engage your community. Engagement can be approached in many ways, but some creative or stand-out ways you can use to get your community excited, enthused, and engaging together are:
Host a photo contest
Get together for a clean-up event
Host a food truck festival
Organize a community book club
— Shared by Elaine Simpson
✒️ Fleet Farming: Trailblazing Urban Agriculture and Community Empowerment
Fleet Farming is a community-centered movement that transforms underutilized gardens and urban spaces into flourishing oases of shared abundance. Founded in 2014 by a team of innovative environmentalists in Orlando, Florida, the concept of Fleet Farming has since been used to set up countless small-scale agricultural projects in urban areas all over the world.
— Shared by Jack Solaris
➡️ Visit EngagingCities.org and follow us on X and LinkedIn for more stories like these!
💬 Do you have an interesting story or event to share? Email us at hello@engagingcities.org
The EngagingCities Newsletter is proudly sponsored by Konveio
