This guide will help collaborators center a long-term thinking mind-set. Learn more about why long-term thinking matters and how to sharpen this skill. +

The development of methodologies for the analysis of stakeholder feedback can bring consistency and robustness to public participation processes. Communities invest time, energy, and wisdom in civic engagement efforts; their contributions should be ethically examined and communicated to advance equity goals and ensure collective effectiveness. +

With several public participation strategies underway, we can take a step back to reflect on our approach, and the tools we are shaping along the way.+

Addressing equity in civic engagement is essential to advance equitable community outcomes. This shared understanding has energized our collaborations and grounded our experimentation with small group participation strategies. We have organized focus groups and interviews to elevate —and amplify— the voices and priorities of frontline communities. These "mini-public" strategies have proven to be adaptable and effective participation tools. Their deliberative nature can hold complexity and deliver valuable insights, but the energy created around them dissipates quickly. How could they evolve to sustain deeper, long-term collaborations? +

Back in 2019 we set out to explore the practice of civic agency to help communities and public agencies find new ways to navigate complexity and plan for uncertain futures. The underlying racial and social inequities exacerbated by the pandemic brought a sense of urgency to this task, and what started as an informal assessment of public participation practices in San Francisco, led to opportunities to test new approaches.+

A powerful sense of possibility lies beneath the wave of bold, collective action of 2020, prompting an urgent review of key institutions. But tackling complex economic, social, and environmental issues, will require sustained efforts, meaningful institutional transformation, and the emergence of a cultural context where new civic frameworks can take shape.+

Solving complex environmental and social problems for an uncertain future will require new civic frameworks that can foster broader and deeper coalitions. Essential public infrastructure, with its reach and transformative power, is ideally positioned to pioneer such frameworks.+

Last year we wrote about the future of participatory processes in Mexico in the context of large public infrastructure projects. Our article explored how an environmental justice lens could support a bottom-up approach, deliver just outcomes, and strengthen communities from within. From the Yucatan Peninsula to the Bay Area, the context of participatory processes varies widely, but similar underlying environmental and social pressures bring into focus the need for new models of cooperation that can solve complex problems with local and global dimensions. +

In 2010 Liverpool's Pier Head and Canal Link won the prestigious RIBA Public Space Award. From 2006 to 2009, as a young landscape architect, Erika was dedicated to the implementation of this project. Ten years later, she made a trip to Liverpool and saw a familiar place in a new light. +

Many cities in California and around the world are re-orienting their urban fabric to embrace not only their forgotten shorelines, but also their forgotten natural and human histories. We joined Redwood City stakeholders to explore how culture and design can help re-connect.
Embracing forgotten shorelines is the last of a 3-part speaker series organized by Redwood City's Parks and Arts Foundation.

If, to quote Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, "what is essential is invisible to the eye", water infrastructure projects will need to harness architecture, art, and education to strengthen the civic partnerships that will make these essential projects possible and attain a new kind of visibility that embodies cultural meaning and inspiration.
Making the invisible visible narrates the journey of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission as they embark on a once in a generation opportunity to transform San Francisco's largest wastewater treatment plant into a 21st Century Resource Recovery Campus. Speaking at WEFTEC 2017 in Chicago, we explore how the alignment of city-wide environmental goals and local community aspirations can render infrastructure investment as a cultural and social process beyond its technical boundaries.

Water Environment Federation National Conference (WEFTEC)
Chicago, 2017. Conference abstract.