On Thursday, October 7th, the Mayor’s Office held its first “community conversation” to talk about what’s working and what’s not in PlaNYC. To recap, PlaNYC is the city’s sustainability document for the year 2030, an anticipated era of more people and contentious climate. It came out in 2007, along with the legal imperative to update it every four years. Now New Yorkers are gathering around the collective table to direct the first round of updates for spring 2011.
Community Advocate Addresses His Peers; PlaNYC
I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was encouraged by a personal email from someone at the Mayor’s Office. Now after having attended, I recommend it to anyone who wants to be a part of building the next phase of NYC life. At the Brooklyn event, I’d estimate there were about 130 people in attendance. The evening was adeptly facilitated by the PlaNYC team; they said we’d be done by 8:00 pm and we were. It was well-paced with good energy. No rambling. No whining. Quite the opposite: I met neighbors who want an open dialogue for a better city, despite upcoming tough developments.
The evening started with a summary of PlaNYC achievements to date. For example, did you know that New York is home to the first municipal Office of Environmental Remediation in the country? Me neither. Later, the audience funneled into a large room with several round tables. Each table was labeled with its particular PlaNYC topic of concern: Water, Transportation, Energy, etc. People selected their tables, introduced ourselves, and got talking. The city’s team stopped by frequently to make sure our goals were, in their words, “ambitious, practical, and measurable.” Then, each table selected a speaker to tell the room about the best idea from their discussion. One by one in round-robin style, we heard from each table. It was fast and focused.
In summary, if you have the opportunity to attend one of these community conversations, DO IT. Yes, I too wonder how these conversations will eventually fold into city policy. It was an empowering evening, but where will we go from here? I’m not sure of the answer. What I know is that as the room dispersed, and we all took our steps onto the Brooklyn streets, I could hear my community saying, “If you don’t participate, you can’t complain.”
Postcards Given Out Prompt Everyone to Text PlaNYC Ideas to the City
Groundswell 
October 22, 2010 at 1:32 PM
wow, it sure sounds as though you drank the Kool-Aid — or are you a member of the mayor’s staff? what you described is not a meeting in which they’re listening to the community — not when they’ve structured every minute, cut off debate and won’t listen to your comments unless they think they’re “measurable”. We’re much better at cutting through the baloney in Queens. Maybe I’ll even whine.
October 27, 2010 at 11:57 PM
Dear Banana Nana:
Are you calling for a Queens/Brooklyn throw-down?!
“Well, BRING IT,” she said while busting out some awesome dance moves from MJ’s Beat It video. [Insert smiley emoticon here.]
Please know that no one cut off my debate, nor ignored my comments at the Brooklyn meeting. If you have a different experience, please write about it from your perspective.
As for whining in Queens, with every action we either build the problem or the solution. Your choice, Archie Bunker.
October 26, 2010 at 10:40 AM
And of course there’s the idea ranking online!
http://www.allourideas.org/planyc
October 28, 2010 at 12:15 AM
Agreed! I’m curious to see how they incorporate all the info they are getting. Daniel, I look forward to seeing you out and about soon. Thank you for all your incredible efforts to rebuild our food system in NYC and beyond. And thanks for writing in.