The Death and Life of American Planning - Planning professor Thomas J. Campanella discusses the legacy of Jane Jacob's effect on planning in America: First: "Privileging the grassroots over plannerly authority and expertise meant a loss of professional agency." Second: " It diminished the disciplinary identity of planning." Third: "The seeming paucity among American planners today of the speculative courage and vision that once distinguished this profession." Have these culminated in turning American planning into a "trivial profession" whose goals of equity, social justice, and sustainability are self-undermined?
posted by stratastar
on Apr 30, 2011 -
40 comments
8 Against 8 Last weekend, a ragtag group of 8 lesbian bloggers slapped together an idea - join forces to raise $8,000 in 8 days to defeat Proposition 8, the ballot initiative that would eliminate same-sex couples' right to marry in the State of California. They set up a donation page and launched 48 hours later (midnight this past Monday). None of them were expecting the immediate and passionate response. Within 24 hours, they had raised $2,500. In 2 days, over $5,000. Yesterday, before day 3 out of 8 ended, they had already shattered their goal of $8,000.
Blogs and
the media started buzzing with 4 days to go. Moral of the story: it doesn't take months and a huge budget to run a successful fundraiser, just a crazy idea and a few laptops.
posted by notoriousbhc
on Oct 23, 2008 -
44 comments
Time Capsule: the internet and E-democracy. “
Peoples’ lives now are as dependent on the Internet as they are on the basics like roads, energy supplies and running water. We can no longer take that for granted and we must advocate for the Internet politically, and support its vitality personally.” - Susan Crawford, University of Michigan School of Law.
In recognition and memory of the beginning and continuation of the political internet, they have organized a Time Capsule of e-democracy's beginnings - everything from using e-mail to plead your friends to vote to flash animations that set the web alight. It is to be sealed on September 22.
Help tell the story of internet politics.
posted by parmanparman
on Sep 15, 2008 -
2 comments
the new urban jungle . . . is a growing movement led by cities like
San Francisco,
New York, and
Leiden to restore active and vibrant natural systems in urban areas. Far from the eden-like depictions of nature of yesteryear, i.e.
the garden of earthly delights (nonetheless, still attracting some dynamic
new christian converts), the movement has morphed into today's backyard and grassroots environmental movement which is more and more a picture of hybridity, compromise, mixed-use, and ultimately, taking nature out of the walled islands of zoos, aquaria, national parks and other thick-walled institutions and offering a different kind of everyday
"unmediated" community experience with the new
urban wilderness.
VIDEO LINK
posted by huckhound
on Jul 6, 2006 -
1 comment
Cleveland bloggers are organizing against a giant suburban-style shopping plaza called Steelyard Commons (to be built on the site of the city's historic steel factories), which will include an immense Wal-Mart at its core. After City Council passed legislation in February to prevent Wal-Mart from adding a grocery store (causing the Bensonville bullies to "pull out" and scuttle the project), the developer was aided and abetted
behind closed doors by Cleveland's mayor, Queen Jane. Despite the mayor's proclamation of "no public money" or tax abatements for the project, there's plenty of
evidence to the contrary.
posted by bitter-girl.com
on May 20, 2005 -
16 comments
Who Lost Ohio? As more evidence comes in
disproving voting fraud in the 2004 Presidential election, perhaps the real lessons for Democrats can be gleaned from this NYT (Reg required, of course) feature on ACT, a Democratic 527. Lavishly funded by George Soros and unions, this high tech organization turned out a record number (2.66 million) of Democratic voters in Ohio, but were out-organized and beaten by a grass-roots Republican effort operating below their radar. [MI]
posted by mojohand
on Nov 21, 2004 -
57 comments
Web of Influence Every day, millions of online diarists, or “bloggers,” share their opinions with a global audience. Drawing upon the content of the international media and the World Wide Web, they weave together an elaborate network with agenda-setting power on issues ranging from human rights in China to the U.S. occupation of Iraq. What began as a hobby is evolving into a new medium that is changing the landscape for journalists and policymakers alike. Hmm. Big Talk or should I get a clue & with the program ? Decisions, decisions....
posted by y2karl
on Nov 4, 2004 -
15 comments
Bush Like Me: Ten weeks undercover in the grass roots of the Republican Party: As a professional misanthrope, I believe that if you are going to hate a person, you ought to do it properly. You should go and live in his shoes for a while and see at the end of it how much you hate yourself.
This was what I was doing down in Florida. The real challenge wasn't just trying to understand these Republicans. It was to become the best Republican I could be.
posted by GriffX
on Oct 15, 2004 -
44 comments
The BBC introduces it's new grass-roots political website
iCan. After research showed (surprise surprise) that "
many people are very disillusioned and cynical about politicians and local civic institutions" moves were made to set up iCan, to enable people to get information on and engage in local and national political issues. With search tools to find actions on local issues, message boards, and the ability to create a website for your cause, "
iCan aims to make politics accessible to ordinary people confronting a problem."
It's also one of the things Rupert Murdoch and The Guardian would like to squash.
posted by Blue Stone
on Nov 4, 2003 -
7 comments
Smart Mobbing the War. [nytimes, reg yadda] I love it when the old-school press picks up a bloggish meme - it's like when Sinatra covers a Beatles song. I'm not sure the author gets the premise of the Reingold book quite right -- it's more about the decentralized nature of Internet anti-war organization, than about the specifics of wireless populi. In fact, he doesn't even credit Reingold, or mention the book. But it's a good read anyway.
[By the way, they're protesting a coming war in Iraq, in case you haven't been following the news.]
posted by condour75
on Mar 8, 2003 -
21 comments
