The other day we abandoned the shed to the rats, the python and the floods and drove to the University at the Gold Coast. I was a bit early for my lecture so I enjoyed listening to the students making their presentations about a planning project.
They were sophisticated postgraduate students and very articulate. Great research and [...]
It’s a worry!
I’ve explained before that community engagement — especially with sustainability — is not an easy task.
Many people argue that it is problematic and can actually hurt those it is most intends to benefit.
So let’s just have a quick look at some of the major critcisms. I’d love to hear comments back and maybe [...]
I was speaking about Sherry Arnstein’s Ladder of Citizen Participation the other day to a group of students and I said that I thought it’d been eclipsed (in the past forty years) by other, better, models. I noticed an embarrassed look on the teacher’s face. Perhaps they had not updated their model?
Well, in South Lanarkshire [...]
I guess everyone who’s been a speaker has had an experience like mine. But when it happened I was initially devastated. I’d been asked to speak to an aged care organisation’s conference. I’d written a story about a feisty older woman who was moving about her future community with ease and independence.
The story was part [...]
Don’t let anyone tell you differently. Community engagement is a tricky matter.
We need to be flexible and still keep our eyes on the ball. It’s a changing landscape. A bit like navigating white water rapids in a small canoe.
When we add the issues of “sustainability” to the mix, things become more complex.
Here are eighteen good ideas [...]
Wendy appreciates her mentor, Emerita Professor Clare Cooper Marcus, for years of friendship, site visits, collaboration, housing wisdom, guided imagery guidance and “Space cookies”.
A few weeks ago the communications officer of a local council responded to my plea to include children and young people in their community engagement strategy.
“Children and young people are not our customers”, she retorted.
I said that where I come from, we don’t appreciate that sort of language.
(“Wash your mouth out with soap” was what [...]
Successful book launch at Bond University, Gold Coast, Queensland, 3 December 2008
I love the new building of the Mirvac School of Sustainable Development at Bond University. It reminds me of the concept of “eco-revelatory design” made popular by a great new book by Randy Hester, Design for Ecological Democracy (2006). All of the building’s many [...]
Rapturous reception at Avid Reader book launch in Brisbane, 5 December 2008
After years of drought, Brisbane was treated to a sparkling evening shower on Friday night, December 5th and a rapturous reception for Kitchen Table Sustainability. Four of our book’s five authors were present at the book launch at popular West End bookstore, Avid Reader. Cathy Wilkinson flew [...]
Reflections on the Adelaide book-signing event, November 2008
When I emigrated to Australia in 1968, the second person I met was Hugh Stretton, now widely regarded as one of Australia’s foremost urbanists. In his kitchen at 61 Tynte Street, North Adelaide, actually at his kitchen table, Hugh was putting the finishing touches to what was [...]
