Monthly Archives: November 2011

International Exchange with the French America Foundation

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When the French American Foundation and the Florence Gould Foundation identified the study themes for its two year reciprocal exchange program as neighborhood revitalization, the adaption of cities in transition, and the relationship of creative place making (e.g., sustainability, culture and art), Metropolitan Institute’s Associate Director Joe Schilling offered guidance on the program content and helped them coordinate their fall 2011 study visit to Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Cleveland.

As part of the Metropolitan Institute’s efforts to expand its international outreach, the institute hosted the French American Foundation delegation in Alexandria, Va., including representatives from the French Ministry of Culture and Communications, a principal sponsor of the exchange. Metropolitan Institute Faculty Fellows Maggie Cowell, Ralph Buehler, and Derek Hyra, associate vice president for research in the National Capital Region, Don Leo, and researchers from Virginia Tech’s Advanced Research Institute joined the facilitated discussion as the group explored examples of how sustainability efforts on both sides of the Atlantic can facilitate the regeneration of distressed cities and neighborhoods.

In light of her scholarship on the economic resilience of distressed cities, from December 5th-9th professor and Faculty Fellow Maggie Cowell will part of the US delegation visiting two French regions: the cities of Paris (Ile de France region) and Lille (Nord-Pas-de-Calais region). Both cities are undertaking efforts to revitalize rundown neighborhoods via the PNRQAD program, a national policy initiative which seeks to promote affordable housing and prevent social exclusion. A visit of the French capital will provide a national perspective on urban planning policies and sustainability issues. Both Paris and Lille are invested in “creative place making” efforts. The “Grand Paris” is spearheading many cultural initiatives which connect directly to large-scale urban planning sustainability efforts. Lille was the European Capital for Culture in 2004 and has also incorporated artistic and cultural projects in its urban development plans. The Lille metropolitan area has an interesting economic and industrial history which has left many traces on its urban landscape with its old industrial sites and brownfields. Since 1996, a new policy for urban renewal (“renewed city”/”ville renouvelée”) seeks to rebuild the city on its old foundations by developing its old run-down neighborhoods and its 19th century industrial heritage.

For the Foundation the aim of this two year sustainable cities program and these study visits is to foster dialogue between leading US and French practitioners and experts on cultural and urban policy and provide a platform for transferable model practices. For the Metropolitan Institute these exchanges will help seed ideas and research opportunities into how cities respond to economic stresses and how policies influence their recovery. They will also build on the institute’s work on cities in transition as part of its grant from the Ford Foundation.

IBM Center for the Business of Government: Citizen Apps as a Democratizing Technology

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The Metropolitan Institute is pleased to announce a new grant from the IBM Center for the Business of Government for our research project, Citizen Apps as a Democratizing Technology:  Challenges and Opportunities for Federal Agencies. This project will be conducted as part of the institute’s policy informatics portfolio with Kevin Desouza serving as the Principle Investigator.

Most US federal agencies have embraced President Obama’s vision for 1) greater transparency, 2) increased citizen participation, and 3) greater collaboration. A critical outcome of these initiatives is the willingness of federal agencies to engage with citizens around open-data initiatives and the creation of technology for solving public policy problems – ‘citizen apps.’ We are witnessing an increasing proliferation of ‘citizen apps,’ i.e. applications designed by citizens and developers to solve public policy challenges. Federal agencies are not only opening up data reservoirs, but are also incentivizing the development of citizen apps through competitions. In this research project, we propose to study citizen apps and the federal programs that fostered (incentivized) their creation.

There are many reasons why it is beneficial to involve citizens in the governance process. One, it opens up problem solving opportunities where citizens can participate. Second, it serves as a forum to increase the diversity of thought and knowledge brought to a problem. This increases the potential for innovation by engaging many minds to solve complex problems. Citizen participation leads to greater collective intelligence and hopefully more robust solutions for social issues. Third, it allows citizens to solve problems that a government agency might be challenged to address. Finally, it empowers the vision set forth by former President John F. Kennedy, “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” Citizen app programs normally come in two broad flavors. One set of citizen app programs are fueled by government open-data initiatives. In these cases, a government agency makes data available to the public and the public in turn responds by using this data creatively to generate technologies (the apps) that better the lives of citizens. The second set of citizen app programs is where a government agency issues a challenge or problem to the public. The public then responds by building solutions to the challenge. In this case, the government may incentivize the development of the apps through issue of recognition prizes and funding. This success of both types of citizen app programs depends on the dynamic collaboration of government agencies, app developers, and the citizenry. To date, our knowledge on what makes for successful collaboration among these three players is limited.

There are a number of design considerations that need to be addressed when building citizen app programs from the nature of incentives provided to goals of the apps, the motivations that drive citizens to create the apps, and how (and where) to deploy the apps, the involvement by the agency (e.g. staff time to interact with app developers), level and amount of data availability, and creation of problem-solving communities and forums, among others. In this research project, we will uncover design considerations that government executives need to bear in mind as they initiate citizen app programs. We will also compare and contrast citizen app programs to arrive at a set of best practices by looking at critical success factors that led to citizen app programs that were highly successful.

Our research project will thoroughly inventory and study the range of citizen apps to understand the typology of the apps, the data they use, the problems they address, the motivation of the designers, the usage by citizens, and the impact on government and governance. We propose to discover and define the inter-relations between the government agencies, the app developers, and the citizens. While our focus will be on studying citizen apps generated out of programs commissioned by the federal government, we will also look at programs started by progressive states (e.g. New York, California, etc).

The results of the final report will benefit public sector government executives, public managers, and the public-at-large in several ways: 1) it will enable government executives to avoid common pitfalls when incentivizing citizen app programs (for e.g. placing emphasis on the frontend, i.e. the creation of apps, and ignoring the more challenging aspect of ensuring that the apps are diffused into the agency’s work practices or to citizens); 2) it will enable public managers to understand the landscape of citizen apps, the motivations of citizens who create them, and the factors that drive their usage; and 3) it will enable federal agencies to better engage citizens into the policy setting process through supporting technology development thereby increasing the chances of more effective solution generation for policy problems.

Examining Public Participation in ACTion Alexandria

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The Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech has entered into an agreement to partner with ACT for Alexandria to advance the design of citizen engagement platforms. Kevin Desouza, Director of the Metropolitan Institute, will lead a team of researchers who will work in collaboration with ACT for Alexandria personnel to examine public participation on the ACTion Alexandria platform. The team will look at how user interactions on the community platform can guide design choices that promote more robust forms of citizen engagement.

ACT for Alexandria is a community foundation founded in the the fall of 2004 by a small group of citizens who came together to decide how best to stimulate philanthropic giving to improve the lives of the most vulnerable in their community. The ACTion Alexandria project is a new citizen engagement platform which provides interactive tools that make it easier for residents to take a more active role in addressing community problems. ACTion Alexandria connects individuals to nonprofit organizations they want to support, but with a strictly local focus. Individuals have the opportunity to take action on behalf of nonprofits working to improve the community.

“ACT for Alexandria is excited about partnering with the Metropolitan Institute to further refine and grow the ACTion Alexandria platform as a model for others nationally,” said John Porter, Executive Director of ACT. Tracy Viselli, the Project Manager for ACTion Alexandria, added “the possibilities for this platform working with the institute are endless.”

According to Desouza, “ACT for Alexandria is a prominent player in the non-profit space. We are excited to partner with them to study the dynamics of public participation in action. The ACTion platform gives us access to real world scenarios of how citizens use technology to engage each other.”

This initiative will advance the work being done in Policy Informatics at the Metropolitan Institute. “Designing better collaborative and participatory platforms remains a critical challenge in the public arena. We are not only interested in this project from a research point of view but also from a design and policy point of view,” says Desouza. The Metropolitan Institute will be analyzing information on user behavior on the platform, designing experiments to test various strategies for increasing engagement on the platform, and contributing to the design of the overall platform.

Desouza explains, “Collaborating on this effort allows us the opportunity to make a difference in our community. The MI is based in Alexandria and we want to be part of the community. ACT for Alexandria provides an amazing array of services, from scholarships to leadership training. ACTion Alexandria is where the idea of community engagement meets the newest technological innovations.”

Continuing Spotlight on Shrinking Cities

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Associate Director Joseph Schilling explores the challenges of the shrinking cities in the November 2011 issue of Planning. In his article ”The Incredible Shrinking City,” author James Krohe, Jr. explores the new world of planning smaller, better, cities.

“Part of the challenge is that folks want to describe and address the problems of declining cities based on past experiences, such as urban renewal,” says Joe Schilling, who heads the Sustainable Communities Initiative of Virginia Tech University’s Metropolitan Institute. However, he warns, “the classic economic development quick fixes of convention centers and riverfront projects have been tried. They deliver a brief bump to the economy. But they do not address the broken systems that impede community economic development.”

Metropolitan Institute in the Washington Post

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Joe Schilling

Joe Schilling, associate director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech and a founding member of the National Vacant Properties Campaign, shares his insights in the Washington Post on the mortgage field services industry leaders, Robert Klein and Safeguard Properties.

“You have to give Robert credit for being out there; that’s certainly a risky environment,” Schilling says. “At the same time, sometimes by overselling what they can do, by over-promoting, that causes some frustration from local government officials.”

Resilience of Citizen Engagement to Local Disasters Project

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Kevin Desouza, Director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech, and Maggie Cowell, Assistant Professor in Urban Affairs and Planning, School of Public and International Affairs), have received a seed grant of $20,000 from the Institute for Society, Culture and Environment (ISCE) at Virginia Tech for a project titled “Resilience of Citizen Engagement to Local Disasters: Studying the Emergence and Dissolution of Community Networks.”

This research project will study how citizens merge into responsive communities, make an impact, and then dissolve during and after a disaster. It will bring into light locally significant disasters that do not earn national headlines and where the local community turns to their own resources to respond. Too often these local disasters and citizen responses are not studied but they are vital to deepening of our understanding of community resilience and the dynamics of citizen engagement. We will uncover the dynamics of community emergence in response to a disaster. Questions considered will include: who organizes citizens into a community, how, and why? How do they respond to the disaster? How is technology, especially social media, mobilized for community organization and relief operations? And finally, what leads to the disbanding of these communities and is there any institutional memory preserved? Consisting of a series of in-depth case studies, made up of first-person accounts and interviews together with a review of secondary sources, the research will look at three stages of a spontaneous community response: the assemblage; the action and impact; and the dissolution of the community. We will study how these emergent communities use technology creatively in the various stages of the community formation as a catalyst to overcome the lack of formal response mechanisms or response planning.

This project will provide valuable insights for citizen activists, planners, and policy makers on the functions and impacts of community response and improve our understanding of citizen engagement. Understanding the emergence, and impacts of local community response can inform the efficiency of more widespread responses. We will construct a web-based platform to share results from the research project (including video interviews with citizens, case studies, and community planning tools). In addition, the web-based platform will support networking and community building among citizens who are interested in building resilient community networks.