E-Democracy & Michigan

On Monday, March 28th the Board at the Birmingham Community House agreed to invest in a partnership with e-democracy.org to develop an Online Issues Forum for Birmingham / Bloomfield Hills. The Online Issues Forum is like an electronic town hall in a local community that allows citizens to engage in a civil discourse about relevant local issues with stake-holders in government, the school board, the library board, in the media, and others. This is an exciting development and I'm eager to dig in and help the project evolve over the next year.

Roman columns in Corktown

Roman columns in Corktown
Originally uploaded by GScott

I really like this picture of a building in the Corktown area of Detroit. The building appears to have fallen on hard times, but it's also full of energy and fun.

Corktown Mural

Corktown Mural
Originally uploaded by GScott

This is a cool mural found on one of the buildings along Michigan Avenue in Corktown.

The Olde Tigers Stadium

The Olde Tigers Stadium
Originally uploaded by GScott

The old stadium used to be the "anchor tenant" in Corktown. The stadium's been abondoned now, but the area is working to keep itself vibrant as a funky arts district.

L.J.'s Lounge in Corktown

L.J.'s Lounge in Corktown
Originally uploaded by GScott

The fourth photo in my series of images of Corktown focuses on the street-level advertising at Wabash Street and Michigan Avenue.

Michigan E-Democracy

[This article was first published as an opinion piece in Crain's Detroit Business]

I was one of those Michigan kids that journalists have written about so much lately. I couldn't wait to leave South-Eastern Michigan after graduating from U of M in 1988 for exotic locales such as, in my case, Manhattan, New York, Cambridge, England, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and San Francisco, California. Like so many others, apparently, I felt that I was growing up in a bland, suburban waste-land. So I set out in search of that something that was missing.

I've returned to Michigan now at the age of 40, and the region is clearly on the ropes. There are many jobs to be done here, not least of which pertains to the economic dysfunction of the automobile business. When things are truly dim, though, political energy can often flow to out-of-the-box ideas that can pay serious dividends over the course of many decades.

Civic, business and media leaders are correctly, in my opinion, identifying the need for robust new civic infrastructure as a long-term well-spring for regional cooperation, creative energy, and youthful entrepreneurship. Having been deeply involved for over a decade with civic initiatives in several high functioning communities, I can tell you that nurturing a culture of civic creativity is the ticket in the long term for retaining more of our own talented children, as well as for attracting dynamic new people from across the world to set up shop here.

More specifically, I urge leaders to consider the idea of creating and implementing a robust e-democracy strategy for the State of Michigan.
E-democracy is the effort to harness the digital revolution to deepen civic life in a geographic community. E-democracy is one cutting-edge area of public policy in which Michigan can seek to lead, and in so doing, set up the seeds for a profound shift over the course of decades for the better in our civic culture.

Of course, Michigan would not be alone. Minnesota, for its part, is commonly regarded as a world leader in e-democracy, as well as in civic culture in general. In fact, when I went there in 1994 to research the impact of the Internet on politics for my Ph.D., I found there what my home – the Detroit area - had led me to yearn for, a deep sense of civic engagement. One also finds in Minneapolis and St. Paul a vibrant youth culture, a huge variety of cultural institutions, and a strong base of entrepreneurial businesses. These good things are built generation after generation on the back of this engagement.

E-democracy.org started in Minnesota in 1994 with the first interactive political Web site, the first U.S. Senate e-debate, and the first community Issues Forum, Minnesota Politics. That august beginning has yielded Issues forums in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Roseville, Winona, Northfield, and Duluth. It has inspired innovation by media companies across the Twin Cities, as well as spawned a robust constituency of citizen journalists that operate their own blogs, pod-casts, YouTube Videos, and Web sites.

I am convinced that a careful process to develop an e-democracy strategy, and a modest investment in Michigan by civic and business leaders in a number of carefully thought out seed-beds can over many years blossom into a rich stew of nutritious and creative self-expression. With good fortune, whole new systems can emerge over time that enrichen our thinking as a community by deepening the analysis of our political and media expressions.

I know too well that this thinking is a world away in Michigan from business as usual. But business here is not so good. This place should think different. Give people what they yearn for before kids leave to find it elsewhere.

Winter in Birmingham, Michigan

winterinbham3, originally uploaded by GScott.

Here's another image of the deep freeze in Birmingham, MI during Winter 06 / 07.