Engagement

Connecting Detroiters with opportunities to realize their city’s future potential; that’s the role our Detroit Works Project Long Term Planning Civic Engagement Team and 14 Process Leaders have played in our journey to develop Detroit Future City.

To date we have engaged in 30,000 individual conversations, in addition to hundreds of meetings involving more than 164,000 Detroiters, in order to spread the word about project. We’ve done it through meaningful, two-way interactions that have helped us gather important on-the-ground perspectives from you, the Detroit community, that are not often found with-in academic analyses and reports. That community expertise has been vital to the process. We are blending it with the analysis of our technical planning team experts, who are charged with developing the Strategic Framework Plan that will serve as the tool to guide decisions that will help improve the economic, social and physical landscapes of our city.

 THE WAYS WE ARE CURRENTLY ENGAGING INCLUDE:

◦ Attend Existing Meetings: We send DWP LTP representatives to speak with community groups by attending regularly scheduled meeting

◦ DFC Road Show: The Detroit Future City Road Show is a traveling exhibit of DFC Framework strategies, images, and maps on display at different locations across Detroit.

◦ DFC Framework Accessibility: We are making sure the DFC Framework is easily accessible to all Detroiters. Organizations, libraries, schools, businesses, and more at locations across the city have the Framework available for the public to read.

THE WAYS WE HAVE ENGAGED IN THE PAST INCLUDE:

◦ Community Conversations PART 1: A series of conversations hosted in partnership with community-based organizations in April and May that worked with members of the community on possible solutions to improve the quality of life for all Detroiters.

◦ Community Conversations PART 2: Four Community Conversations in partnership with community-based organizations about the Draft Strategy Recommendations will be hosted between September 10 and September 14, 2012

◦ Detroit 24/7: An interactive mission-based game that gives players an opportunity to creatively think, learn and share ideas about the Detroit community’s future.

◦ Detroit Stories: A collection of short films created to capture the authentic voices that represent Detroit by spotlighting the commitment and connection Detroiters have to the city

◦ Planning Element Open Houses: Open Houses will be hosted at the Long Term Planning HomeBase at 2929 Russell Street in August and September 2102. They are the first of many opportunities for Detroit stakeholders to become familiar with several Draft Strategy Recommendations.

◦ Roundtable Discussions: Targeted discussions with specific stakeholder groups from the city of Detroit about various concepts and aspects of the technical planning team’s work, including youth, business owners, faith-based groups, etc.

◦ The Roaming Table: A table that appears at various events and venues across the city as a way to generate a community conversation about the future of what Detroit could and should be.

◦ Street Teams: A dedicated group of Long Term Planning ambassadors who hit the streets informing people about the project and its progress by visiting places like grocery stores, beauty and barber shops, neighborhood meetings, and other high traffic community locations armed with literature and other materials to distribute.

◦ Telephone Town Hall: A telephone conference call with thousands of Detroiters to provide an update about the project, outline its next steps, and allow participants to ask questions.

◦ Training Ambassadors: A program to train members of the Detroit community using a tool kit that provides them with the information they need to discuss the project, gather the expertise of others, and bring it back to the Long Term Planning Team so it can be blended with technical planning analysis.