Sustainable Fox Valley Inc.

Join us for a great webinar on May 26th!

1:00 - 2:00 p.m.

FVTC Bordini Center, room 112A

Enlisting Others: Bringing About Participation in Sustainable

Community Planning

Sarah James

Co-Director, The Institute for Ecomunicipality Education & Assistance

Without broad community and municipal participation, sustainable development initiatives can become the project of a few dedicated individuals that have value in themselves, but do not bring about widespread community and municipal change toward community sustainability. Conventional approaches to community participation more often than not yield few participants beyond the "usual suspects" and some identified "stakeholders." The time demands of busy people's lives frequently preclude them from participating in civic or sustainability initiatives.

This Webinar will introduce particular approaches to designing a participation strategy that can involve citizens from all walks of life as well as the diversity of perspectives in community sustainability planning. It will also introduce an overall approach to sustainable community planning that has been shown to bring about successful systematic and institutionalized change.

Objectives:

Learn what does and doesn't work in designing a community participation approach and why.

Learn about a sustainable community planning strategy with a strong track record of success in participation and implementation. Recommended/Required Reading before this session:

The Natural Step for Communities (James & Lahti, 2004), pp.2-25; pp.178-181.

Sarah James is a planner and Co-Director of the Institute for Ecomunicipality Education & Assistance, and co-author of the award-winning book The Natural Step for Communities: How Cities & Towns Can Change to Sustainable Practices (New Society Publishers, 2004). This book received the Planetizen Top Ten Book in Planning Award for 2005. She is also a co-author of the American Planning Association's Policy Guide Planning for Sustainability, adopted by the APA in April 2000. She is a co-founder of the North American Eco- Municipality Network. She was awarded the 2007 Dale Prize for planning excellence and contributions to ecological planning from California State Polytechnic University at Pomona. She has worked with municipalities for more than twenty years in the areas of sustainable community planning, urban planning, and community development. She holds a Masters degree in planning from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.