Tips for Sustainable Community Planning

#UnpopularOpinion: The mass exodus of DEI from mainstream platforms wasn't the crisis – it was the catalyst. Now it's time to build with intention. 2025's digital landscape isn't just evolving - it's demanding we rethink how we build and sustain our communities. Strategic Community Building in 2025: 1. Own Your Digital Ecosystem - Build infrastructure you control - Maintain subscriber lists that algorithms can't touch - Develop community spaces that prioritize your values first - Create content repositories you actually own 2. Elevate Connection Over Metrics - Forget vanity metrics - 100 engaged change-makers > 100,000 passive followers - Impact measurement over impression counts - Depth of engagement over breadth of reach 3. Strategic Community Architecture: - Private, encrypted spaces for intimate community building - Professional hubs for career advancement - Learning sanctuaries for knowledge sharing - Real-time collaboration zones - Direct communication channels you own and control 4. The Hybrid Advantage - Blend digital connections with physical gatherings - Local pods supporting global movements - Tech-enabled, human-centered community design - Strategic in-person moments that amplify online impact Here's the 2025 truth: Building influential communities isn't about chasing the latest platform trend. It's about creating sovereign spaces where our communities can: - Control their narrative - Own their data - Direct their destiny - Scale their impact The question isn't where your community lives online – it's who actually owns your community's home? Your impact deserves a foundation, not just a feed. #CommunityBuilding #DigitalSovereignty #Leadership #FutureOfWork What's your strategy for building community infrastructure that you actually control?

How can parks catalyze social vitality and build community? Here are ten ideas: 1. Design for liveliness: Jane Jacobs argued that parks need to be closely integrated with their surrounding streets and offer “functional physical diversity among adjacent uses, and hence diversity among users and their schedules;” this means four tenets in design: intricacy (stimulating a variety of uses and repeat users), centering (a main crossroads, pausing point, or climax), access to sunlight, and enclosure (the presence of buildings and a diversity of surroundings). 2. Ensure clean and safe environments: parks must be clean, well-maintained, and safe for people to use them. Investments that do these make it more likely people will visit and linger, increasing opportunities for social interaction. 3. Offer diverse opportunities to gather: a wide variety of programs, classes, events, and exhibitions bring a wide variety of people to the park. Events that encourage interaction are especially useful to breaking down barriers between people. 4. Partner with locals on co-management: these not only cultivate a group that can advocate, care, and organize events for parks, but build networks of neighbors with shared passions. 5. Provide ample opportunities to volunteer: this helps maintain the quality of parks while bringing people together in ways that build connection and meaning. 6. Furnish intergenerational play zones & senior social hubs: designing specific areas to encourage interaction across age groups—for example, comfortable/shaded seating, chess/checker tables, and bocce ball or shuffleboard courts—nurture new kinds of social ties and bridge divides in society. 7. Include dog runs: these build a connective network of neighbors around a like-minded passion. 8. Endow community gardens: these foster a sense of collective responsibility, especially when managed by local volunteers, as well as creates a beautiful, welcoming space that can be used for intimate social gatherings. 9. Mount generous shared food experiences: these attract a wide range of people to discover new tastes and activities, break down cultural barriers, and offer chances to meet new neighbors; one idea is to create regular, organized events where park-goers can bring food to share with one another builds community around shared food experience. 10. Supply diverse recreation facilities: a variety of affordable facilities offers year-round opportunities for shared activities and social interaction.   Any other ideas? Please post in the chat. Thank you Darren Hinton for these ideas. #parks #community #neighborhood #relationships #isolation Cormac Russell Frances Kraft Usha Srinivasan Lauren Hall Sarah Strimmenos Jennifer Prophete Gordon Strause Kara Revel Jarzynski Democracy Policy Network Sam Pressler Tracy Hadden Loh PlacemakingX Kevin Ervin Kelley, AIA Lory Warren Noah Baskett Dr J.R. Baker Matt Abrams Daniel Selz Daron Babcock Anna Scott John B. Carol Naughton Erin Barnes