Strategic Plan To-Do List: Neighborhood Communication & a Smartphone App
Decatur Metro | February 8, 2011On to Decatur Strategic Plan Goal 6!
Goal 6: Strengthen communication and involvement in and among neighborhoods, city government, volunteer boards and commissions, institutions, community organizations, local businesses, and Decatur as a whole
Task 6A: Provide communication in a variety of formats to reach a broad audience. Expand the use of social media and electronic tools such as Open City Hall to encourage citizen participation.
Task 6B: Reorganize city staff assignments to provide focused support to improve interaction between neighborhood and community groups, and focus on developing a community that supports aging in place.
Task 6C: Create a Decatur smart phone application to serve as a visitor and resident guide for local businesses, as well as a source of event and other information.
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[re: Task 6C] Apps happen! A better aim might be to provide cues, establish guidelines, and see what materializes.
In my experience with the roundtables, this kind of stuff was the most frustrating. Clearly there is a lot of communication and involvement going on already, due to the efforts of individuals and entrepreneurs such as Decatur Metro and Decatur News Online. Look at the list of Decatur blogs and other sites to your right. The fact that you are reading this right now – the market is working.
We don’t need a government solution for this. We don’t need to deploy any of our limited city government resources towards this end.
I think a Decatur app is a great idea! What better way for visitors and citizens to know what restaurants/stores are open, what their contact info is, and what they serve. Its great!
There’s already an app for that:
http://www.yelp.com/c/decatur-ga/restaurants
An app that is marketed to our visitors and tourists and that promotes special events and what downtown has to offer, is an excellent idea. It could pay for itself! I bet most tourists carry a smart phone, and when they get here, they want to find out what goes on here! I disagree with “Tee Russ” that it is would be a wasted effort. No out of towners sees the list of local blogs, if they are walking around downtown!
It would be a wasted effort when it goes up against Urbanspoon, Yelp!, Opentable, or any of the other smartphone apps that provide the info you describe. Just for example, Urbunspoon has over 10 million iPhone users.
I love everyone’s “can do” attitude, but this stuff has already been done.
I did not know that, and if that is the case, I agree with you. For the city government to do something the private sector already does, seems wasteful.
For me, this is the Strategic Plan goal with the MOST potential to create some Decatur magic! Neighborhood building may not be an essential service, but it’s so very key to having a strong community. It’s hard work to revitalize a neighborhood & connect neighbors when you’re starting pretty much from scratch. Having the City offer some basic resources would be tremendously helpful.