The Public Commons

Podcast Summary

• Community Involvement and Participation in Public Spaces: Engaging communities in the design and implementation of public spaces leads to safer, more creative, and more inclusive environments. Participatory budgeting is a powerful tool for deep community engagement and empowerment.

  Community involvement and participation are key to creating effective and impactful public spaces. Whether it's through surveys like NPR's podcast survey, or community-led decision-making processes like participatory budgeting, giving people a voice in the design and implementation of public spaces can lead to safer, more creative, and more inclusive environments. As Anush Zamorodi ponders the importance of public places, she highlights the need for safety and creativity as essential elements. Sherry Davis, a community consultant, reinforces this idea by discussing the transformative power of libraries as community hubs. These spaces offer resources beyond books and encourage community members to define how they want to use the library, fostering a sense of ownership and belonging. Participatory budgeting, as discussed by Sherry, is a framework that empowers communities to decide how portions of a budget should be spent. This process not only allows for deep community engagement but also enables people to imagine and create a better world for themselves. By actively involving community members in the planning and decision-making process, public spaces can truly become the heart of a community and inspire innovation and growth.

• Implementing participatory budgeting in Boston: Giving young people a voice in city budget decisions led to community improvements and fostered ownership and investment.

  Creating inclusive and effective public spaces, both online and offline, requires community engagement and participation. Sherry Davis shares her experience with implementing participatory budgeting in Boston, where young people were given the power to decide how to allocate a portion of the city budget. This approach not only led to meaningful improvements in their communities but also fostered a sense of ownership and investment among the participants. Despite challenges, the success of the project demonstrates the importance of deep community building and effective communication in bringing people together to make a difference. Participatory budgeting is still a relatively new concept in the US, but it offers a powerful opportunity for individuals to be involved in decision-making processes and create public spaces that truly serve the public.

• Building trust and empowerment through participatory budgeting: Participatory budgeting fosters trust and empowerment between community members and their governments, allowing individuals to see themselves as active participants and even aspire to leadership roles. Efforts to replicate these values in the digital realm are ongoing.

  Participatory budgeting, a process where community members decide on public spending, has led to significant relationship-building and behavior change. With examples ranging from small-scale student decisions to large-scale city projects, the biggest win for advocates like Sherry Davis is the trust and empowerment fostered between community members and their governments. This shift in perspective allows individuals to see themselves as active participants in the larger system and even aspire to leadership roles. While physical public spaces have long provided a sense of belonging and community, the challenge now lies in replicating these values in the digital realm. Eli Pariser, known for coining the term "filter bubble," is working on solutions to create more inclusive and diverse online public spaces. Overall, participatory budgeting and the ongoing quest for effective digital public commons offer opportunities for stronger community connections and more equitable decision-making.

• Creating a better digital public square: Focus on creating a sense of belonging, fostering meaningful connections, promoting understanding, and encouraging action to make the digital world a positive and productive space

  Tech platforms, as our online public squares, have a significant impact on our discourse and behavior. They shape how we engage with each other, and their design and encoded norms influence our actions. To create a better internet, we need to consider the qualities of good physical public spaces and apply them to digital platforms. These qualities include welcome, connect, understand, and act. By focusing on creating a sense of belonging, fostering meaningful connections, promoting understanding, and encouraging action, we can make the digital world a more positive and productive space for all.

• Designing inclusive digital communities: Mixing up groups, establishing shared goals, fostering collective efficacy, and intentional design can help create inclusive digital communities.

  Creating inclusive and meaningful digital communities goes beyond just welcoming people and facilitating connections. It requires intentional design to encourage cross-group bonds and erode antagonism. The social sciences suggest that mixing up groups and establishing rules that promote shared goals can help. One example is the Polis system in Taiwan, which elevates issues with the most cross-sectional support. Additionally, fostering a sense of collective efficacy, or the belief that a community can address problems together, is crucial for positive community outcomes. Designers can build digital spaces that invite specific conversations and provide soft negative feedback when necessary. However, the challenge is greater in digital spaces as people may not share a physical location, so careful consideration and intentional design are essential.

• Creating Effective and Inclusive Digital Public Spaces: To build thriving digital communities, we need a new approach that embraces a mix of public and private online spaces, designed and governed with the specific needs of diverse groups in mind. This will require a new design movement, investing in our digital ecosystem, and working together.

  To create effective and inclusive digital public spaces, we need a new approach that goes beyond relying on existing platforms to address the complex needs of diverse communities. This means embracing a mix of public and private online spaces, governed and designed with the specific needs of different groups in mind. This will require a new design movement, with digital urban planners and architects leading the way. While some may view this as an impossible task, history shows that we have successfully built thriving communities and infrastructure in the physical world, and we must not give up on the promise of a connected and inclusive digital society. By investing in our digital ecosystem and working together, we can create online public spaces that are comfortable, beautiful, and truly reflective of our global community.

• Creating Positive Digital Public Spaces for Future Generations: Building trust and humanity in digital spaces leads to a more constructive and productive online environment, where children feel connected, valued, and have agency to effect change.

  Creating meaningful and productive public digital spaces is essential for future generations. Eli Pariser, a researcher and author, envisions a digital world where children feel connected, valued, and have agency to effect change. He believes that building trust and humanity in these spaces leads to a more constructive and productive online environment. An example of this in action is Wikipedia's coverage of the Arab Spring, where volunteers worked together to keep information accurate and up-to-date during a time of revolution. This sense of community and collaboration is crucial for creating a positive and impactful digital public space.

• Wikipedia's commitment to neutrality and inclusivity: Wikipedia aims for neutrality but faces criticism for lack of representation and balance, particularly in articles about women and people of color.

  Wikipedia, with its vast array of articles written and edited by volunteers, provides a neutral, ad-free platform for sharing knowledge. Jimmy Wales, the founder, envisioned a world where every person has access to the sum of all human knowledge. To achieve this, Wikipedia established a firm neutrality policy, ensuring that the community can work together and avoid becoming a battleground for opposing views. However, despite this commitment to neutrality, Wikipedia has faced criticism for lack of representation and imbalance in certain areas, such as articles about women and people of color. In essence, while Wikipedia strives for neutrality, it's an ongoing process to make the platform truly inclusive and reflective of the world's diversity.

• Creating a thriving public space on Wikipedia: Emphasize diversity, accuracy, and a welcoming environment for new contributors. Address underrepresentation and incomplete coverage, and move beyond the false dichotomy between doing good and making a profit.

  Building a thriving public space, like Wikipedia, requires a diverse community of contributors and a focus on providing accurate information, rather than chasing clicks or promoting unhealthy content. The speaker emphasized the importance of addressing incomplete coverage and underrepresentation of certain groups, such as women, and creating a welcoming environment for new contributors. They also suggested moving away from the false dichotomy between doing good for the public space and making a profit, and highlighted the difference between platforms like Wikipedia, which are curated by humans and prioritize accurate information, and profit-driven platforms that can lead users down unhealthy paths. The speaker compared Wikipedia to a well-run municipal government, striking a balance between creating rules and maintaining a safe environment while allowing for criticism and free expression. Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia, is a proponent of this approach, and the Wikipedia Library project, which helps Wikipedians find reliable sources, is an important step in building and maintaining this public space.

• Transforming forgotten spaces into community projects: Creating unique spaces fosters human connection and collective problem-solving for community issues

  Artist Matthew Mazada believes that transforming forgotten or abandoned public spaces into community-designed and built projects can lead to meaningful discussions and collective problem-solving for issues beyond the reach of traditional structures. By creating unique, custom-fit spaces, people from all walks of life can come together to dream, discuss, and shift their perspectives on their communities and the world. Examples of such projects include the Open House in York, Alabama, which transforms into a community theater, and the Parks Park Project in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which uses an anaerobic digester to transform dog waste into usable energy. These projects not only address specific community issues but also foster human connection and a sense of shared experience.

• Supporting TED Radio Hour through reviews and sponsors: Listeners can support TED Radio Hour by leaving reviews on Apple Podcasts and sponsors like Charles Schwab and IXL Learning help produce the show

  The TED Radio Hour team appreciates listener support through reviews on Apple Podcasts, which helps them reach new audiences. This episode was produced by a team at NPR and TED, with assistance from various individuals and partners. NPR sponsor Charles Schwab promotes their podcast, Choiceology, which explores the psychology and economics behind people's decisions. IXL Learning is another NPR sponsor, offering advanced learning solutions for kids. During the election season, Up First podcast offers 15-minute daily updates to help listeners navigate the news effectively.