Tag Archives: planning

“Whose land is this?” How to find out who owns vacant lots in your neighborhood

If you walk around any city or town in America, you’ll see them. If you have one in your neighborhood, you’ve certainly wondered how it came to be there. If you’re like many in our ioby community, you imagine all the great things you could do with it.

Why, it’s the ubiquitous vacant lot!

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How to grow community engagement for your sustainability project

If you’re a devoted sustainability planning or policy leader in the public sector today—particularly within a city or state government office or agency—you’ve probably asked yourself one or more of these questions:

  • How can we be sure we’re responding quickly and effectively to residents’ ideas and needs concerning environmental issues?
  • In our planning processes, how can we include the voices of residents in neighborhoods with long histories of disinvestment?
  • How can we expand and deepen our community engagement with a tight budget and scarce resources?

Well, we have a few ideas, courtesy of some outstanding ioby Leaders, projects, and friends:

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Hosting a Community Meeting? Avoid These 5 Mistakes!

Hey urban planners and city officials!

Are you working with a local community on a planning process? Hosting a public community meeting to gather input or feedback on a plan is a familiar part of the task. But if you’ve been doing this kind of work for a while, you’ve probably attended (or even, yikes, led) a community meeting that’s gone horribly wrong. There’s no worse feeling than being in front of a room full of angry people when you’re trying to build trust and work together to improve the community for everyone.

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