Snagging Gen-Y: Do Facebook ads work in public engagement?

Having worked in communities big and small across the continent, we’ve had ample opportunity to test ideas and find approaches that work best. Urban design details. Outreach tactics. Implementation tricks. Many of these lessons are transferable, which is why we’ve created “Back of the Envelope,” a weekly feature where we jot ’em down for your consideration.

For those looking to expand public engagement and collaborative process at the community level, this week presents a curious convergence of news and ideas. Setting the stage was CNU20’s “Charrettes and the Next Generation of Public Involvement,” an afternoon breakout session exploring a fairly provocative (for New Urbanists) question: In this era of limited resources, is the traditional charrette still a viable model of engagement and collaborative design and, if not, can it be retooled for relevance?

This Just In from CNU20: World Not Yet Saved

The Congress for the New Urbanism’s annual convergence of giganto ideas and fine-grained pragmatism wrapped Saturday night with a party in a bar. The four days in West Palm Beach, Florida, marked the 20th anniversary of such gatherings, most of which also involved spill-over debates in venues with liquor licenses.

As usual, the CNU20 agenda was packed with passion and ambition, with a smidgeon of apocalyptic visioning to dampen out-of-control hopefulness. So what’s on the minds of the NU designers, planners and fellow travelers these days?

CU@CNU?

PlaceShakers gets put on ice this week as we, together with most of the urbanists we know, head to West Palm Beach, Florida, for CNU 20: The New World, this year’s installment of the annual Congress for the New Urbanism.

Will you be there?

As summarized by the CNU, “The New World confronts the challenges of peak oil, climate change, and growing wealth disparity, along with worldwide adjustments in the financial, housing, retail, transportation, and energy markets. Taken collectively, these challenges are drastically changing how we do business in the 21st Century, and opening new opportunities for the New Urbanism.”

This comes on the heels of last year’s Congress, where Next Generation urbanists brought fresh ideas and approaches to the wet blanket malaise of the sagging economy. Scott Doyon wrote about some of them in advance of the gathering while Howard Blackson followed up with a post-game analysis.

There’s no reason to believe this renewed momentum won’t continue to grow in West Palm Beach. Interested in connecting while we’re there? Leave a message here in the comments or flag us down in the hall.

PlaceShakers returns next Monday.