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Give a Minute! Looking for Bold Ideas to Fix the City, New York Turns to Crowd Sourcing | Co.Design. If anybody needs a feel-good moment in this winter of our discontent, it's Michael Bloomberg. When the embattled New York city mayor gave his State of the City address yesterday he hoped to take the spotlight off the issues that have recently bedeviled both city residents and City Hall: snow removal screw-ups, fraud in the payroll system, withering criticism over a new schools chancellor, and fury over neglect of the boroughs. So, beyond addressing plans to build new infrastructure on the waterfront, reform the pension system, and allow livery cabs to pick up passengers in Queens and Brooklyn, the mayor announced a new program called "Give a Minute", which is conceived as a sort of 311 for new ideas. As part of a larger sustainability-focused initiative, PlaNYC2030, "Give a Minute" New York, will ask citizens to contribute ideas on how to make their neighborhoods greener.

Want that pothole down the street to finally be filled? Change.org. UserVoice - The easiest way to understand your customers. SnowCrew - Neighbors for Neighbors Jamaica Plain. Tim Berners-Lee on the next Web. Report non-emergency issues, receive alerts in your neighborhood. What a Hundred Million Calls to 311 Reveal About New York | Magazine | Wired.com | Cities. How can New York City use technology to serve citizens. FixCity : Home. What is Placemaking? What if we built our communities around places? As both an overarching idea and a hands-on approach for improving a neighborhood, city, or region, Placemaking inspires people to collectively reimagine and reinvent public spaces as the heart of every community. Strengthening the connection between people and the places they share, Placemaking refers to a collaborative process by which we can shape our public realm in order to maximize shared value.

More than just promoting better urban design, Placemaking facilitates creative patterns of use, paying particular attention to the physical, cultural, and social identities that define a place and support its ongoing evolution. With community-based participation at its center, an effective Placemaking process capitalizes on a local community’s assets, inspiration, and potential, and it results in the creation of quality public spaces that contribute to people’s health, happiness, and well being. Placemaking begins at the smallest scale.