(click to enlarge)Tonight the Columbia Association Board of Directors will hear testimony about the pro and cons of the Town Center development plans that Bring Back the Vision has supported. The Bring Back the Vision folks are hoping to get some younger residents to come and be recognized. They define young as anyone under 50 (ya gotta love that!).
That makes sense. The Town Center development will have it's greatest impact on those folks and therefore their input bears more weight, or it should anyway.
If you think your voice has not been heard so far in this debate over Columbia's future, please try and attend this evening. You don't have to testify. You can simply stand and be recognized when they ask for a show of support. The meeting will be held at 7:30 PM in the CA board room in the Columbia Association Building (Teachers Building) in Town Center.
That makes sense. The Town Center development will have it's greatest impact on those folks and therefore their input bears more weight, or it should anyway.
If you think your voice has not been heard so far in this debate over Columbia's future, please try and attend this evening. You don't have to testify. You can simply stand and be recognized when they ask for a show of support. The meeting will be held at 7:30 PM in the CA board room in the Columbia Association Building (Teachers Building) in Town Center.
2 comments:
Man, oh man. This pic you have here, wb, really demonstrates what my brother, a professor of Land Economics at Texas A&M and Columbia homeboy, calls Jim Rouse's biggest mistake: A big, fat mall right in the middle of Columbia. What a mess to have to deal with in downtown planning. And what a waste of space with the endless parking lot.
How I do wish county, CA and other various and sundry institutions would stop asking that "younger folk" come to meeting after meeting after meeting. (Yo, have you all not noticed that such forums do not call us out? Have you considered, by chance, that we care as much, if not more, than older generations do about our community’s development and vision?)
Wouldn’t it be something if, instead, such institutions began reframing their understanding of younger generations, recognizing that many of us have much to say about this downtown development stuff? See, many of us feel more compelled to speak up in blogs, at salons, and in social technology platforms where a) each person is allowed their own perspective and none is required to sign up for a group or cause in order to participate, b) we can invite others’ intelligent comments on our own thinking, c) we can link to relevant resources, thus allowing others their own deeper exploration into a subject and d) we’re creating the initial layers of knowledge management regarding this ever-so-important subject of the direction in which we’re heading and the next steps to get there.
Well, as for the CA citizen comment process tonight, I'll be occupado with my own citizen comment process: A Blogtail Party for local bloggers, ironically / coincidentally / intuitively (?) planned for the same day, and right below the CA event location, at Clyde's.
Seriously. Come meet some of the local bloggers, people who are also contributing to the community input process. We’ll be at Clyde’s from 5:30 – 7:30 p.m., in the bar area.
...and afterwards we can all stumble upstairs to the CA meeting ;-}.
-wb
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