Community engagement as an issue is becoming a major
issue in many municipalities that wish to remain forward-thinking and progressive
in the way that they manage their communities.
In this post I will compare the public engagement strategy outlined on
the City of Waterloo’s website to the framework that Peter Block outlines in
his book, “Community: The Structure of Belonging”, to see if there are any
notable similarities or differences between the two, and what these differences
mean for the success of the community engagement strategy. Waterloo’s public
engagement strategy consists of four main pillars: reach out and communicate
more, gather information and listen, tell our story, and finally, help people
find what they need.
The first strategy that Waterloo outlines for better
engaging the public is to “reach out and communicate more. As described by the city this means that “residents
want to be informed, connected and engaged in everything the city does. They also want the opportunity to both have
their voices heard and to be able to access the information when they want it”. They then go on to outline tactics such as an
increasing mobile presence, new ways to present information to citizens, and
further encouraging students to interact with the community as ways to
accomplish this objective.
In Block’s framework, this approach most resembles
building social fabric by drawing the community together through information. However, this step seems to neglect the
importance that Block places on convening in person and meeting in
small-groups. In the so-called age of
isolation, I believe that focusing on mobile phone applications and an increased
online presence as a means of distributing information is a reasonable step to
make, if it is done well, meanings that said apps are kept up-to-date with
relevant information, and that they function properly. The ubiquity of the smartphone and online
connectivity allows people, and municipalities, to quickly disseminate information
to millions of people instantly, and is much more efficient than the old
town-hall meeting structure, where, barring some highly controversial issue,
no-one but the most actively engaged citizens would show up.
The next strategy that Waterloo outlines in its
public engagement plan is to “gather information and listen”. They plan to do this by “monitoring trends
and public opinion” along with “maintaining open channels of respectful
communication” between the city and its residents. Some specific steps outlined within the plan
include “building a city-wide email list”, and focusing on modernizing their
social media presence. These are both
interesting ideas, and I believe that an opt-in, citywide mailing list would be
an excellent way to send out important community notices, as well as summaries
of council meetings and other political developments. Social media, of course, is unavoidable in today’s
world and the importance of keeping up to date with this type of media is
self-evident. Fostering an online
community allows conversations and associational life to be strengthened, two
of the main points involved in Block’s framework or building strong
communities. However, the city must also
keep in mind that these methods of communication may be difficult to access for
lower-income and senior citizens, who may not be as familiar as most with this type
of technology.
The next pillar the city outlines, “tell our story”,
argues that “residents and stakeholders want to hear about our stories and
experiences with our partners and the community”, and as such, the city plans
to look for new and better ways to deliver “city news and stores to residents
and stakeholders”. This whole pillar
seems extremely self-congratulatory, especially the section which states that
the city is looking for new ways to inform people when they have “garnered
recognition from outside agencies and groups” and that they will “ inform residents not only what we have
achieved, but why we have achieved it”.
I am not too sure how much lower-income residents will care that the
city has been successful in attracting new tech businesses when they are still
living below the poverty line. This
strategy could, however, be argued to fit into building associational life and
social fabric, as it may cause some residents to feel proud about their cities
accomplishments, and may motivate them to become more engaged in their
community. So maybe it’s a wash.
The final step that Waterloo plans to take is to
better “help people find what they need”, by striving to “provide quick and
easy access to information through a variety of sources, while using the
appropriate level of technology and language to deliver messages”. The city identifies that they are making it a
priority to focus on less-resource intensive methods such as online
communications, which falls in-line with their emphasis on e-mail and social
media as outlined above. They also
identify that communicating through these resources using “plain-language” is
important. Both of these steps, if
implementing well, will strengthen communication between the city and its
residents. If the city were to offer an
abridged version of council minutes, written in plain language, more citizens
could be engaged with the weekly proceedings of their local government. Again, streamlining communication helps build
social-fabric, and by extension a community.
The main thing to remember, however, is that in the
end the onus is on us to engage with our own community. No matter how
sophisticated of an engagement plan a municipality comes up with, it is
worthless if no one chooses to engage with it.
You cannot force people to care, but you can make it easier for them to,
and I believe that by and large, Waterloo’s engagement plan offers some
interesting ideas for how to do so.
Link to Waterloo’s Public Engagement Strategy:
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