Participation and the City

Abstract

The City of Ann Arbor is working on reducing its energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Historically, it has focused on municipal operations but is now working on community-wide outreach. Currently the City’s focus is on increasing home weatherization rates. In this practicum I focused on creating an outreach and engagement model for the City. I chose “participation” as a core intervention strategy. Literature and case studies suggest that participation can be an effective intervention method, and one that could be used to address the City’s constraints (e.g. financial, staff limitations). I suggested that the City could use participation to identify barriers preventing weatherization in the community, build relationships with the community, communicate the City’s energy and greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, and engage and involve the community in finding local and applicable solutions. I argue that a participation strategy can be used to improve weatherization rates. However, I also suggested that an engagement strategy making use of participatory methods would benefit from a broad focus on residential energy use, rather than a sole focus on weatherization, and would help achieve the City’s goals of net greenhouse gas reductions.