Lead With Engagement
by Susan Hopkins and Tanya Zwahlen Before we became focused on community engagement, we were planners working on transportation, economic development, and community revitalization projects. We’ve done our fair share…
Housing Needs Analysis For Washington County
By Susan Hopkins AICP Service providers, elected officials, and members of the public meet to discuss housing needs and solutions in Washington County, NY. Last summer and fall, we teamed…
Strategic Planning With The Fellows
by Susan Hopkins Last week I had the opportunity to spend a day doing the kind of work that speaks to my heart and gets me out of bed in the morning:…
Public Meeting Design 101
by Tanya Zwahlen Last month, the City of Rochester called André and I for help with public engagement on a project related to the relocation of the police station in…
Public Engagement In The Elements
by Christopher Dunne Mother Nature doesn’t care about your community outreach. That’s the impression we’ve gotten this spring from our public engagement efforts around Reimagine RTS, Monroe County’s transit system redesign…
Participatory Budgeting Returns to Rochester
by Susan Hopkins, AICP For For practitioners of public engagement, the chance to experience participatory budgeting is what I imagine it’s like for a classic car enthusiast to drive a…
Highlights From NPC18
by Tanya Zwahlen Last week, Sue and I joined 5,700 of our fellow planners in New Orleans for the 2018 National Planning Conference (NPC18). It was great to be in…
Reflect + Vision + Play + Strategize = A Bold 2018
by Tanya Zwahlen We stepped away from the office today for some team building and strategic planning. And playtime. Playtime that included burpees.
Training as Therapy: Turning My Public Engagement Failures Into Career Gold
by Susan Hopkins IAP2 Training in Toronto. 2017 I remember the first time I facilitated a public meeting at which people showed up angry. As a representative of a big box…
The Democracy Cog
by Christopher Dunne It’s been a whirlwind two months since I started as a Senior Planner with Highland Planning and only a little longer since I’ve been able to call…