Raymond, New Hampshire is a town seeking change. A community group called Positive Raymond collaborated with the University of New Hampshire's New Hampshire Listens Program to host a one day forum in which community members could come together to discuss how to make Raymond a better place to live, work, and learn. Framing questions for the conversation included:
* What do you like most about living in Raymond?
* What about Raymond do you think could be improved?
On August 11-12th, 2011, 193 residents of Seoul and the surrounding metropolitan area took part in a deliberative poll about the reunification of the two Koreas. Participants discussed the “Exchanges and Cooperation” program, North Korea’s nuclear weapons, and the government’s reunification policy. The deliberative poll was broadcast by KBS (Korea’s public broadcasting network) on December 4th, 2011 as a one hour program, part of a two-part documentary on unification.
Contrary to popular perception, the Inner Belt opposition movement was far from unified. While opponents to the highway were united in their objectives, their motivations and strategies were as varied as the group itself. Even residents of the same community differed in their reasons for criticizing the highway.
Principal sources of the Inner Belt controversy included the highway’s potential effects on:
Burning Man is an annual artistic festival which is held in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert and whose central premise involves extensive community participation. Far from being a standard art festival, Burning Man embraces the idea of radical inclusion and aims to instill a set of core values in its many participants. In order to achieve this objective, the week-long event features a variety of fascinating participatory frameworks, from consensus decision-making and a culture of volunteerism to interactive artwork and even the collaborative construction of a city!
Occupy Vancouver, during the occupation of the Vancouver Art Gallery last fall, needed to implement a consensus-based decision making process in order for the encampment to function in a fair and inclusive manner. The General Assembly and it's processes were developed by consensus for this pourpose.
In the context of the perpetual crisis of urban transportation in Bucharest, there is a growing population of city dwellers fighting for bicycle rights and advocating for a new, bicycle friendly infrastructure in Bucharest. The bicycle fans coagulated since the mid 2000’s into different groups and NGO’s and developed into a new movement and a powerful presence in the urban landscape, adopting several strategies of public participation.
The community of Bethany conducted concept and comprehensive community planning for three reasons: 1. To meet various applicable state, regional, county and community planning objectives. 2. To identify necessary urban infrastructure requirements, and 3. To ensure that provisions for such infrastructure to serve the greater North Bethany area are fully in place before development begins. Public involvement has been a fundamental part of the planning process to facilitate an exchange of information and build awareness.
Note: This article is a stub and is in need of assistance with editing and content, especially with the inclusion material relevant to participatory-democratic processes. Please help us complete it.
As of 2010, Portsmouth, New Hampshire (population 20,000) has sustained the practice of organized, public dialogue and deliberation for over ten years. Since 1999, diverse community groups in Portsmouth have organized at least six rounds of large-scale dialogue-to-action circles (study circles) initiatives. This case study provides brief descriptions of four of these initiatives from 1999 through 2004. Descriptions of Portsmouth’s later public engagement initiatives will be added to this entry at a later date, or posted as separate entries.
