Community Planning.net
is an organization which promotes community planning not only for, but by communities. From their “about” page.
All over the world there is increasing demand from all sides for more local involvement in the planning and management of the environment. It is widely recognised that this is the only way that people will get the surroundings they want. And it is now seen as the best way of ensuring that communities become safer, stronger, wealthier and more sustainable.
But how should it be done? How can local people – wherever they live – best involve themselves in the complexities of architecture, planning and urban design? How can professionals best build on local knowledge and resources?
Over the past few decades, a wide range of methods has been pioneered in different countries. They include new ways of people interacting, new types of event, new types of organisation, new services and new support frameworks.
This website provides an overview of these new methods of community planning. It is aimed at everyone concerned with the built environment. Jargon is avoided and material is presented in a universally applicable, how-to-do-it style. Whether you are a resident wanting to improve the place where you live, a policy maker interested in improving general practice, or a development professional working on a specific project, you should quickly be able to find what you need.
We don’t know yet whether they view, as we do, environmental planning as the flip side of disaster risk reduction and mitigation, or how far outside of Europe they plan to operate. But they certainly seem to be an excellent resource.
Distributed Social Networking has immense potential as a disaster preparedness tool. Particularly so if wireless mesh networks are part of our emergency communications systems - and if we assume that any likely emergency system in the United States will be, in most places, community-based rather than government-based. (There are, no question, some state and local governments which have effective systems in place. But FEMA: res ipsa loquitur). In that context we mention DiSo - a distributed social networking project which I found on Chris Messina’s site.
We think the formula - large network + actual local preparedness + redundant, resilient comms systems = equals network able to prepare, lobby, allocate resources and respond as needed. And, inevitably, build community en route.
We’ve run across the blog of one Ryan Lanham - another guy smart enough that you’re happy he’s a good guy. Which he manifestly seems to be. We’ll describe him here as a nouvelle social scientist - because we don’t know which flavor of social scientist he is for formal purposes.
Here’s Ryan Lanham’s wikipedia entry .
And his blog, Identity Unknown
We came across Mr. Lanham’s blog because we’re looking at open-source software solutions for emergency management - and he’s part of - or connected to - the group that’s been developing Sahana, an open-source NGO emergency-management application.
There are automobiles - more than one model - that have been tested in New York as taxis and police cars. We’re perversely proud that our streets are too barbaric for civilized cars. (Is it just me that feels this way?)
We’re hoping, of course, that Sahana won’t crumble under the pressure of hypothetical Brooklyn emergencies. But we’re going to test it -
as well as SUMA - a similar (in purpose) open-source application which is available via the Pan American Health Organization.
