Public meetings are great democratic tools in principle. But in practice, they tend to attract a narrow demographic, consistent in both the nature of their concerns, and their attendance. The result can be an equally narrow glimpse into the mood and opinions of the city.
So the city's decided to expand its ambit.
“Over the last year, the city has been exploring ways to enhance our capacity to inform, engage and consult with the public including through the use of online tools,” says Fionna Murray, the city's director of corporate policy. The city commissioned a company called
Mindmixer to develop consultation tools it could deploy online to get a truer insight into what the city thinks.
They're calling it
Idea Space.
“Each discussion is created for a specific purpose,” Murray says. “City divisions can use the new Idea Space as one of their consultation tools – likely they will use a combination of traditional and online methods. Depending on the purpose or goal of that consultation the comments would be considered alongside other input. This online tool has the advantage of creating a record that can be shared and passed along to other staff as well.”
In slightly circular fashion, the first issue up for discussion via Idea Space is called Growing conversations: Making engagement work, organized by the city's planning division to get a handle on people's thoughts as to how public consultations can be improved.
Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Fionna Murray