Month: February 2009

How close is local?

Paul Evans kindly asked me to write a post for the Local Democracy blog. I came up with one called How Close is Local?

I live in a house on a street, in a village, within a parish, that is in a district, a parliamentary constituency and a county too. I’m also close to a city which I visit, sometimes attend meetings but am not officially connected with in any way. I work on a regular basis in London, too.

All of these areas could legitimately be described as local – yet if I were to create project based on locality I would probably have to pick at most two or three of these to focus on. Would this still be legitimate though, and would it mean alienating people for whom local means something different?

Read the rest at Local Democracy.

Bookmarks for February 2nd through February 7th

Stuff I have bookmarked for February 2nd through February 7th:

  • Social Innovation Lab Kent – "SILK is a way of working that puts people and their everyday experiences at the centre of policymaking and service design."
  • digitalresearchtools / FrontPage – "This wiki collects information about tools and resources that can help scholars (particularly in the humanities and social sciences) conduct research more efficiently or creatively."
  • Passenger Focus – Putting Rail Passengers First – "We are an independent public body set up by the Government to protect the interests of Britain's rail passengers."
  • Clay Shirky: online crowds aren’t always wise – "Clay Shirky, leading commentator on internet technologies and author of Here Comes Everybody, last night backed away from his earlier enthusiasm for the online wisdom of crowds in democratic decision-making. He suggested that Government use of social media should focus more on “small groups of smart people arguing with each other”, than national-scale engagement online."
  • City of Lincoln Council – Planning & Building Control – Plan – Lincoln Council provide Google Map of planning applications on there site – data courtesy of planningalerts.com – good work all round!
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