Everyday social computing, mobile technology, and the adoption of "web 2.0" approaches by governments have laid the groundwork for far wider citizen involvement in civic life.  Citizens can now be involved earlier on, more frequently, and in more meaningful ways than was ever possible before.  How can these opportunities be leveraged for use in the city planning space?  What are the emerging technologies that will make this possible?  What are the bureaucratic, logistical, or social issues that need to be addressed in considering these ideas?  What tools could we build -- today -- that would be the most impactful?

The Open Planning Project is interested in developing free, open source tools to support citizen engagement in planning.  To that end, we are reaching out to the planning, government, nonprofit, citizen and tech communities to help us explore opportunities and share ideas.  This event should be the first of many, and will be a hands-on workshop aiming to bring together many diverse perspectives.

The workshop will follow the "unconference," or "BarCamp," format, where sessions and talks are proposed and led by the participants of the workshop.

Pass it along:

Lastly, if you know of someone who should be invited to this event, please pass on this invitation.  We realize this is somewhat short notice, so we hope you are able to make it. Thanks, and we're looking forward to seeing you on the 13th.