Summary
Civic design is a young field with old roots – and we forget those roots at our own peril. This talk will be a narrative survey, starting with activists challenging the design of public spaces in the 60s, and will trace a fifty year arc from those roots to the language of accessibility we use today so often in the public sector. We'll cover organizations, private and public, that have shaped the field, and end suggesting what we owe ourselves for the next fifty years. A reference guide for early careers, and a deeper contextualization for someone later in their career.
Key Insights
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Civic design is a young field grounded in decades of activism and advocacy, not just recent digital innovations.
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Accessibility emerged from radical self-determination struggles, exemplified by Ed Roberts and the Center for Independent Living.
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Physical accessibility battles like curb cuts directly influenced digital accessibility policies such as Section 508.
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Sherry Arnstein’s ladder of citizen participation clarifies that genuine participation requires redistributing power to citizens.
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William White’s direct observation method reveals subtle human interactions with urban spaces, informing better design.
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The Center for Urban Pedagogy connects design with community empowerment by making legal and urban conditions understandable.
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Models like Denmark’s Mind Lab and Finland’s Helsinki Design Lab bridged participatory design with government service transformation.
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UK Government Digital Service standards are rooted in decades of civic design legacy and participatory action research.
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Ignoring the historical roots of accessibility and participation risks repeating past mistakes and diminishing trust.
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The future of civic design depends on openness to diverse influences and generous sharing of knowledges within the public sector.
Notable Quotes
"This project is actually 10 years in to a 50 year project."
"Independence did not just mean performing duties without assistance. It meant a radical self-determination."
"Participation without the redistribution of power is an empty and frustrating process for the powerless."
"We come to these spaces not to escape but to partake of them."
"It was not some benevolent church group or a town council, but the deliberate actions and painstaking labor of members in the community."
"Civic design is a young field with old roots and we forget those roots at our own peril."
"We have lots of answers but very few questions, lots of stories, but no history."
"Our users are the public that are all around us when we work in the Civic and public sector."
"The winds that we celebrate come from difficult work over years of efforts from inside and outside of government."
"Rather than hoard these experiences and institutional knowledge, I want us to be generous and open with them."
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