TECHNOLOGY COULD BOOST NEW LOCALISM Posted Saturday, October 23, 2004 by penllyn
Local councils could use technology to build a new sense of local community by moving away from centralised web services towards smaller local online projects, according to a new report from independent think tank the New Local Government Network- http://www.nlgn.org.uk
"There is a danger that in the next 20 or 30 years, local communities will be so lacking in cohesion that the whole concept of local government gets called into question," says James Crabtree, one of the report's authors and a visiting research fellow at the Institute of Public Policy Research (http://www.ippr.org.uk). "By using technology to support communities, local government can encourage shared interests among people, find out more about their concerns and equip itself to serve them better."
You can get chapter 1 of the the report here-
Invisible Villages - Preface & Chapter 1 (PDF version)
This web site is another example of "social software", or internet-based collaborative tools, and is evolving to facilitate communication and the sharing of ideas among local people. Since 1999 we have been attempting to drive forward the use of technology at penllyn.com in this remote part of west Wales through addressing perceived weaknesses in provision by use of social economic models.
This site proved itself as a valuable tool in the hands of local people to secure broadband for the whole area and give all local citizens a vital economic tool a whole year ahead of most other U.K. rural areas, and all with little financial input, whilst harnessing local enthusiasm, hard work and shared interests with the use of new technology.
The report, 'Invisible villages: techno-localism and the enabling council', says that such an approach will help local authorities to resolve two apparently conflicting trends: on the one hand, the devolution of power from the centre to local institutions; and on the other, the declining cohesiveness of local communities, as they become increasingly transient and less tied to geographical location.
A new generation of "social software", or internet-based collaborative tools, is evolving to facilitate communication and the sharing of ideas among local people, and local government has a role to play in supporting this kind of online civic engagement, the report says.
It cites a number of online community projects, part or wholly funded by local authorities, which go some way towards fulfilling these objectives. These include webster.uk.net (http://www.webster.uk.net), a community web site for the inhabitants of Torfaen in South Wales, and Cumbria County Council Discussion Forum (http://cumbria.gov.uk/forum), which invites local people to address concerns to the council and form their own discussion groups. But such initiatives are currently in the minority, says the report, with few local authorities exploiting "the inherently social nature of the web".
The Torfaen portal, launched in 2003 was part of a £1.6 million project, the portal (web-site) itself costing £1million.
e-communities was supposed to deliver similar cut-down versions throughout Wales, but was axed at the eleventh hour, leaving a gaping hole in the assemblies Cymru ar-lein 'vision' and strategy for communities, and saving £25million in the WDA's budget. - visionary or myopic - you decide!
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<a href= http://www.ibcsbc.org/ >Immanuel Baptist Church, Danville, Kentucky</a>
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© penllyn.com 2001
© penllyn.com 2001
