Shiny, happy posters: community consultation can be enjoyable

Here’s a lovely example of community enagement, courtesy of my partner’s recent trip to his Toronto hometown.

The posters inform the community that the neighbourhood is undergoing an “extreme makeover” – no doubt involving construction noise, traffic impacts and disruption in their “favourite neighbourhood.”

But the tone is happy and upbeat in its warm appeal: “Let’s get through this together.”

It shows how community consultation can be a positive experience – if approached with creativity and sensitivity.

Too often, stakeholder engagement is seen as a risk or unnecessary expense in development planning processes: “We just don’t want to open up a can of worms” being a common refrain.

But genuine and open engagement can bring real benefits, enabling positive new connections between clients and communities which may endure well beyond the formal engagement process.

This entry was posted Wednesday, July 27th, 2011 at 16:54 and is filed under Corporate social responsibility, Social planning, Social sustainability, stakeholder engagement, Urban planning. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.