Author Bios
Nicole is a Communications Manager at Urban Interactive Studio and editor of EngagingCities.com, specializing in communication outreach in various forms ranging from speaker relations, social media strategy, project management and online engagement
Candy Chang, an urban planner, artist, and designer, has been helping neighbors understand each other in new and enlightening ways. Making use of a wide variety of community activators such as chalkboards, sidewalk stencils, and street art stickers, her ideas aren’t just innovative but also artistic and moving.
In Los Angeles, a city that lacks urban parklands, an event called CicLAvia is creating a temporary park for free, simply by removing cars from city streets. This open air, closed-streets, bicycle centric public event in Los Angeles sounds simple, but its benefits are enormous: it brings citizens outside of their homes to enjoy the streets, our largest public space.
How do global networks manifest themselves in everyday life? And how are limited analog spaces reflected in the potentially unlimited realm of the virtual? What can be done to counteract a polarisation of digital and analog living environments? How can digital globetrotters be motivated to relocate their projects, free floating in network environments, in the “flesh and stone” (Sennett) of the cities? What spaces of possibility (linked to the concept of the European city) can be created for the newly emerging modes of living? And by whom? These are just some of the questions that will have focus at next month’s conference “The City of Flows – Interdisciplinary perspectives on the digital city in analog spaces”
Now that the Facebook Timeline is in place you may be wondering just how organizations, non-profits and local entities can engage with citizens through this new layout. We’ve put together a few helpful hints for maneuvering in this new landscape.
Executive Director of City Parks Alliance, Catherine Nagel, was asked recently why building and maintaining parks was so important, given all of our other obvious public and urban needs, and considering how costly it can be to fund such projects. Her response: “With the urbanization of our planet, people living in these dense environments — this is kind of obvious — need clean air to breathe, clean water to drink. Their children need places to play. We have the researchnow. All the new health studies about open space have been significantly helpful. There is growing recognition that proximity to parks has a direct impact on how healthy a community and its residents are.”
