ABCD

The  Neighborhood Notes blog posted an announcement for a workshop this weekend that sounds quite interesting. The topic is Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD). I've heard of community asset mapping - the process of intentionally identifying the human, material, financial, entrepreneurial and other resources in a community - and I wondered whether this was a tool that might be used in the design phase of a community.

So I did a little more digging and discovered that there is actually an Asset Based Community Development Institute in Evanston, Illinois. It is part of Northwestern University. They describe their work as follows:

• Building community capacity is at the heart of ABCD’s work. ABCD engages directly with community groups to support their asset-based community development efforts. The Institute and its affiliated faculty also participate in an array of local, regional, and international conferences and workshops as keynote speakers, workshop and training facilitators, technical support providers, and learning participants.

• Using a community-based participatory research approach, ABCD partners with community residents and other local entities to conduct research that helps prepare them to achieve their own community building objectives. ABCD also works with community groups, non-profits, and an array of other institutions to evaluate asset-based community development projects.

• Working directly with students, Northwestern faculty, and other organizations, ABCD contributes to the development of the next generation of engaged civic leaders and community builders.

• Producing community building publications and other resources for practitioners and scholars in the community development field, ABCD contributes to a growing body of knowledge about the effectiveness of the asset-based approach to strengthening communities.

It is encouraging to see a growing interest in the third rung of the sustainability stool - the people.

Blog Action Day on Climate Change

Today is blog action day on climate change, and I want to make a contribution in respect to community. We've heard of green building and know that many planned communities are carefully considering their use of sustainable materials, implementing designs that encourage travel by foot, bicycle and public transportation. Such tools to reduce community footprints are becoming more advanced as scientists discover new systems rooted in biomimicry. 


Tools that enable an interface between designers and community are also surfacing as developers are beginning to recognize the importance of the third leg of the sustainability stool - people. According to Allyson Wendt, managing editor for Environmental Building News (EBN) and author of the new article Building for People: Integrating Social Justice into Green Design, "design discussions are an opportunity to bring attention to issues of social justice, whether by arguing for daylighting in janitorial offices or suggesting that a building pursue LEED points for site selection, alternative transportation, or indoor environmental quality."

Wendt's discussions are critical, yet developers are only one slice of the pie. In the United States, we still have many barriers to entry, namely the artificially low costs of fuel and government subsidized industry. According to Norman Myers of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) in his book Perverse Subsidies: How Tax Dollars Can Undercut the Environment and the Economy, we need to be taking a closer look at the effect that our government policies are having on our progress toward a sustainable future. Such perverse, or black subsidies pose a serious dilemma for the millions of Americans who live on scant resources. They promote the consumption of products that are unhealthy on personal, local and global levels, and often place green initiatives on an uneven playing field.

Without financial incentives, a substantial segment of the American populace will be unable to embrace the lifestyle changes necessary for a sustainable future. Local projects like the Seattle Housing Authority's High Point Neighborhood and the King County Housing Authority's Green Bridge are finding creative ways to address the problem. Thanks to their efforts, the regressivity of a sustainable lifestyle has vanished for hundreds of low-income residents in the Greater Seattle area.

In my next post, I hope to explore how 3BL companies might build upon the success and overcome some of the obstacles that these admirable initiatives have faced.

Regenerative Communities

I'm currently in my second year of a two-year MBA program at the Bainbridge Graduate Institute (BGI). BGI is a triple bottom line (3BL) business school whose mission is to change business for good. Over the summer, we formed Marketing teams around entrepreneurial concepts that we will continue to develop over the school year and possibly launch in the spring. My team and I are working on a business model for Regenerative Community Developers, which will focus not only on designing and constructing developments with the latest permaculture technologies, but also on the cultural components that will enable these communities to live to their fullest 3BL potential.

Once embraced only by a fringe element of society, now hybrid models are finding their way into the hearts and minds of a growing number of Americans. Governments are recognizing co-housing and eco-communities  as potential solutions to many of the socio-economic, ecological and fiscal woes of contemporary society. But I believe we have yet to unleash the full potential in these models.

My teammates and I are forward thinking individuals, so we know in our hearts that communities must embrace diversity if they expect to thrive. But knowing something in your heart is not the same as proving it on paper. In my Marketing class we talk about demographics and the importance of honing in on our target market. But what if you believe that integration is the key to communal success? What if you need to target all markets to successfully prove your theory? Our Marketing professor suggested we look for some common wants and needs that our target groups share. So how about this:

We all want and need to feel wanted and needed.

BGI is such a cool school. Not only am I blogging about the idea in my Social Web class, but I'm running a creative session around it for my Creativity and Right Livelihood (CRL) class. My CRL session focus is "In what ways might we bring diversity into community developments?" But that is just the beginning. The necessary follow-up question is "In what ways can communities encourage ongoing integration, empathy and exchange?".

For the purpose of this blog (and my project), I would like to focus on the following demographic groups and explore ways in which we might find not only shared wants and needs, but opportunities in their disparity:

• people who have more money than time
• people who have more time than money

We all know that every demographic group fits in one of these categories to varying degrees, and hopefully we understand that people with more time may also possess other resources of potential value to the community.

So how do we make it work? How do we design communities that consider human resources as valuable as natural resources? All the pieces are out. Now it is time to starting solving the puzzle.

 

Purpose

What is Designing Community? My hope is that it will become a dialogue, where we can discover the limits and universality of an idea that I believe is the key to a sustainable future. The word community will conjure a unique image in each of our minds. So, as practitioners of the most complex language on the planet, why do we have one word to describe a thousand different ideas?

I was watching this hot tub video today, thinking about how our society is constantly in search-mode. It's like there is this understanding that we've lost something, but we can't figure out how to find it. For over fifty years now, our default has been to buy more stuff to satisfy that void.



If you've ever studied economics, you probably understand why shopping has become a national pastime. It is crucial to our GDP, which is required to grow to support our government and boost the image of our elected officials. But I digress. For a great insight into the story of stuff, and why we shouldn't be buying into it, check out Annie Leonard.

What I'm getting at is once we're all shopped out, and we're still feeling empty, where do we turn? For some it is yoga, meditation, religion, family. Perhaps it's sports, travel or gardening. These are all good - very very good. But what if you don't have time for these activities? What if you are so caught up in the grind that there is no time to pursue your passions?

I have three questions for you to ponder:

1. What are your meaningful activities?
2. Do you have enough time for your activities?
3. If not, what gets in your way?