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This book introduces the concept of community innovation and illustrates its role and impact in promoting sustainability. It includes nine case studies from the Asia-Pacific region where communities are adopting innovative methods to address complex and unpredictable environmental problems and promote sustainable development. This often requires new cultures, institutions and governance structures, as well as dramatic changes in people's perceptions, attitudes, roles and behaviours. The authors examine environmental initiatives within the region, including natural resource management, eco-tourism, forest management, solid waste management, and water management. The book offers a rich balance of perspectives from experts in community development, urban planning and local environmental management, as well as community leaders, local government officials, journalists, non-governmental organization representatives and academics. It provides theoretical and practical insights for communities and those who provide support to communities at the local, regional and global levels of governance.
Because of the specific characteristics of innovation communities, social relationships between community members play a pivotal role for performance in such settings. In response, Martin Dumbach takes a social capital perspective and approaches the research question: What are antecedents of social capital in corporate innovation communities? Using both qualitative as well as quantitative methods, the research presented offers interesting insights into the dynamics of the development of community networks. In more detail, the author describes innovation community social capital as a self-reinforcing asset that is affected by antecedents on the individual, the community, and the organizational level. These findings add to the literature on innovation communities and social capital and have important implications for community management.
Self-organising networks have become the dominant innovators of complex technologies and radical innovation. The growing need for co-operation to ensure innovation success calls for a broader understanding of what makes innovation projects successful and requires new concepts. The book introduces the new concept of “innovation communities”, defining them as informal networks of like-minded individuals who act as innovation promotors or champions. These key figures come from various companies and organisations and will team up in a project-related fashion, jointly promoting a certain innovation, product or idea either on one or across different levels of an innovation system. The publication presents findings from surveys that demonstrate that networks of champions are a success factor in radical innovation. Five case studies of noteworthy innovation projects illustrate why the collaboration of champions can make innovation projects more successful. Furthermore, the book presents hands-on methods and includes best-practice cases and guidelines on how to develop innovation communities. This publication comprises empirical findings and practical experiences that are valuable for the following groups in particular: Entrepreneurs; Innovation, R&D, and network managers; Innovation and strategy consultants; Innovation and start-up intermediaries; Innovation researchers; Government officials and politicians responsible for R&D and innovation programmes and funding
Discusses the Neighborhood Resource Team, Dade County, Florida, The Neighborhood Network Center, Lansing, Michigan, and the Police Assisted Community Enforcement (PACE), Norfolk, Virginia.
It is increasingly recognized that land can be managed most sustainably through involving local communities. This book highlights the potential of a new methodology of uncovering and stimulating community initiatives in sustainable land management in Africa. Analyses of four contrasting African countries (Ghana, Morocco, South Africa and Uganda) show that as communities directly face the challenges of land degradation, they are likely to develop initiatives themselves in terms of sustainable land management. These initiatives (or ‘innovations’) may be more appropriate and sustainable than those emanating from research stations located far from the communities. The book describes the rationale of the approach used, the set of steps followed, how the project managed to engage the communities to understand the importance of the activities they were undertaking, and how they were stimulated to improve and extend their initiatives and innovativeness. Examples covered include soil fertility, community forestry, afforestation, water, invasive species and grazing land management. Central to the book is the way communities, and scientists, interacted between the four countries and learnt from each other. The book also shows how the initiatives were outscaled locally.
Contributions by urban planners, sociologists, anthropologists, architects, and landscape architects on the role and scope of urban design in creating more just and inclusive cities. Scholars who write about justice and the city rarely consider the practices and processes of urban design, while discourses on urban design often neglect concerns about justice. The editors of Just Urban Design take the position that urban design interventions have direct and important implications for justice in the city. The contributions in this volume contextualize the state of knowledge about urban design for justice, stress inclusivity as the key to justice in the city, affirm community participation and organizing as cornerstones of greater equity, and assert that a just urban design must center and privilege our most marginalized individuals and communities. Approaching spatial and social justice in the city through the lens of urban design, the contributors explore the possibility of envisioning and delivering social, spatial, and environmental justice in cities through urban design and the material reality of built environment interventions. The editors’ combined expertise includes urban politics and climate change, public space, mobility justice, community development, housing, and informality, and the contributors include researchers and practitioners from urban planning, sociology, anthropology, architecture, and landscape architecture. Contributors: Rachel Berney, Rebecca Choi, Teddy Cruz, Diane E. Davis, Fonna Forman, Christopher Giamarino, Kian Goh, Alison B. Hirsch, Jeffrey Hou, Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, Setha Low, Matthew Jordan Miller, Vinit Mukhija, Chelina Odbert, Francesca Piazzoni, and Michael Rios.
This book offers a new reading of Marcell Mauss’ and Lewis Hyde’s theories of poetry as gift, exploring poetry exchanges within 20th and 21st century communities of poets, publishers, audiences and readers operating along a gift economy. The text considers trans-Atlantic case studies across fields of performance and ecopoetics, small press publishing and poetry institutions, with focus on Joan Retallack, Bob Holman, Anne Waldman, Bob Cobbing, and feminist performance. Elizabeth-Jane Burnett focuses on innovative poetry that resists commodification, drawing on ethnography to show parallels with gift giving tribal societies; she also considers the ethical, philosophical and psychological motivations for such exchanges with particular reference to poethics. This book will appeal to researchers in modern poetry, poetry teachers, advanced students of modern literature, and those with an interest in poetry.
The "new community" movement of the 1960s and 1970s attempted a grand experiment in housing. It inspired the construction of innovative communities that were designed to counter suburbia's cultural conformity, social isolation, ugliness, and environmental problems. This richly documented book examines the results of those experiments in three of the most successful new communities: Irvine Ranch in Southern California, Columbia in Maryland, and The Woodlands in the suburbs of Houston, Texas. Based on new research and interviews with developers, designers, and residents, Ann Forsyth traces the evolution, the successes, and the shortcomings of these experiments in urban innovation. Where they succeeded, in areas such as community identity and open space preservation, they provide support for current "smart growth" proposals. Where they did not, in areas such as housing affordability and transportation choices, they offer important insights for today's planners, designers, developers, civic leaders, and others interested in incorporating new forms of development into their designs.
An essential guide to building supportive entrepreneurial communities "Startup communities" are popping up everywhere, from cities like Boulder to Boston and even in countries such as Iceland. These types of entrepreneurial ecosystems are driving innovation and small business energy. Startup Communities documents the buzz, strategy, long-term perspective, and dynamics of building communities of entrepreneurs who can feed off of each other's talent, creativity, and support. Based on more than twenty years of Boulder-based entrepreneur turned-venture capitalist Brad Feld's experience in the field?as well as contributions from other innovative startup communities?this reliable resource skillfully explores what it takes to create an entrepreneurial community in any city, at any time. Along the way, it offers valuable insights into increasing the breadth and depth of the entrepreneurial ecosystem by multiplying connections among entrepreneurs and mentors, improving access to entrepreneurial education, and much more. Details the four critical principles needed to form a sustainable startup community Perfect for entrepreneurs and venture capitalists seeking fresh ideas and new opportunities Written by Brad Feld, a thought-leader in this field who has been an early-stage investor and successful entrepreneur for more than twenty years Engaging and informative, this practical guide not only shows you how startup communities work, but it also shows you how to make them work anywhere in the world.
The original essays in this timely collection discuss the many ways to foster innovative and unprecedented collaborations leading to more effective partnerships between major institutions and corporations to poor and disenfranchised communities. Many of today's pressing issues are covered in-depth: bridging the digital divide; community reinvestment; university and corporate partnerships; and corporate responsibility.