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Projects and Research

New approaches to democracy where Evoke fellows have played either a lead or supporting role.

Community Governance: A Place-Based Approach
The team at Evoke BC is currently researching and highlighting neighbourhood, or community-based, approaches to governance. Specifically, structures and decision-making practices that are grounded in place. This is a new approach with a long history: Imagine making decisions about your neighbourhood in a local assembly comprised of your neighbours, local businesses, and community organizations.

This approach is showing up in different jurisdictions, such as:
  • Empowerment Congress - Neighbourhood Councils - in Los Angeles
  • The Front Porch project in Seattle
  • Office of Community and Civic Life in Portland (formerly Office of Neighbourhood Involvement)
  • Neighbourhood Plus program and City Plan in the City of Dallas
  • Neighbourhood Enhancement Teams in Tacoma
There's also a group of people in Vancouver who are looking to launch a pilot of this model in Vancouver's Inner City, known as Our Place.

Our Place is a place-based collective impact collaboration of residents, community-based organizations, and service providers anchored through the Ray-Cam Community Association. Principles and strategies of this approach include people-centred, participatory service delivery that engages the community, and builds the capacity within communities to collectively identify, analyze, and implement community programs and services. To learn more:



Previous Research:

This paper focuses on a key dimension related to Community Amenity Contributions (CACs); although they are derived from value created within a neighbourhood or community, there is a disconnect from that value generated, the benefits that a community will receive, and how that is decided. Evoke BC believes that a more participatory budgeting process, as a form of participatory democracy, is vital towards making a more equitable democracy, and could be applied in the case of CACs.

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