Developing and renewing parks and city centers are core priorities for local governments. Local governments invest in these projects because they recognize their value to a community, including deeper community connections, economic development, and a sense of pride among residents. Want to see how our clients tackle these issues and co-create solutions with their communities? Let’s dive into six recent projects.
1. City of Monroe, OH plans for the future of parks facilities (United States)
Parks are a crucial part of any community. Besides being great spaces for events and for people to engage in recreational activities, they provide green space for residents to interact with each other and meet their neighbors.
Since park amenities touch so many people, it’s a great topic for your first project to help drive registrations on a newly launched platform – just what the City of Monroe, OH is doing. The city is asking its residents for feedback on its park system to help inform future investment and budget decisions. In a survey, residents can share which parks they visit, why, and if they meet their families’ needs.
2. Rochdale Borough uses traffic enforcement powers to make streets safer (United Kingdom)
Road safety should be a top priority for every city. In May 2022, the UK government changed rules to empower local authorities to conduct their own traffic enforcement to manage roads known as hotspots for traffic offenses.
Rochdale Borough Council was eager to take the opportunity to make its streets safer and selected an initial location to start fining motorists not following traffic rules. To better understand enforcement issues that might be present in the chosen area, the Council asked residents to take part in a survey and share their experiences.
See how Rochdale Borough engages its residents
3. Nieuwkoop researches flexible housing solutions (Netherlands)
Across the Netherlands, communities need more affordable housing, and the municipality of Nieuwkoop is no different. To reduce the housing shortage in the short term, the municipality is looking into flexible housing solutions.
Flex homes are small, movable homes of good quality that can be put up quickly. The municipality invited everyone looking for new housing to participate in a survey to see whether these flexible housing possibilities can be a temporary solution.
The survey is only open to a specific audience, but you can browse Nieuwkoop’s other projects for inspiration!
4. Ostend revitalizes neighborhoods with a participatory budget (Belgium)
At the beginning of 2022, the Belgian City of Ostend released €120,000 as part of a new participatory budgeting project to develop ideas for improving the eight neighborhoods. By hearing directly from residents, the budget can be better spent, in line with the needs of the inhabitants.
From March to June, local residents could share their ideas. Out of all contributions, 26 were selected and put up for a vote. From 14 November to 12 December, residents were invited to indicate the top 3 projects they wanted to see realized. The city divided the available budget over the projects and will keep residents updated about progress on their CitizenLab platform.
5. Riga residents indicate where the city needs improvement (Latvia)
In December, the City of Riga launched its engagement platform and, in doing so, became the first Latvian city to join CitizenLab’s global network of innovative and forward-thinking governments.
The team there also saw great potential in driving registrations from residents by focusing on improving the city. To find out how residents currently feel about the place where they work and/or live, Riga invited them to indicate the zones in which they feel most comfortable and uncomfortable through the mapping feature of their CitizenLab platform. This will allow them to make better-informed investments and decisions to enhance the feeling of safety and comfort of their residents.
6. Novi Sad asks residents to help prioritize initiatives for their multi-year plan (Serbia)
The Serbian City of Novi Sad is developing a new multi-year plan, and the city administration is asking residents to vote on their favorite projects.
These include a variety of improvements and initiatives designed to make the city a better place to live, work, and visit. The proposed projects include new parks and green spaces, upgrades to existing infrastructure, and the development of new cultural and recreational facilities.
Residents can read detailed descriptions and estimated costs of the proposed projects, and vote for the ones they believe will have the greatest positive impact.
