Resources to support the Baltimore Project

This page was created in January 2002 to support the efforts of getting a community based Navigation Center® into East Baltimore. Click here to see the "archived" research page created during an earlier phase of this project.

Please e-mail Jeff Johnston (jjohnston@iterations.com) with comments and contributions to this page. Also contact Jeff if you have trouble accessing any materials on this page.

 

This resource page is divided into multiple sections. Click on one of the section headers below to take you to that section on the page.

 

 

Documentation of project activities

Conference call, January 23, 2002

Progress and next steps toward developing a Community Based Navigation Center in Baltimore, specifically the area described as East Baltimore.

(Click on an image to open up a full sized version. Images and notes courtesy of Robert Darling)
Click here to download Robert's documentation file (MS Word file, 31KB)
The conversation began scanning progress made and current political realities in East Baltimore. Changes in the proposal would attempt to build political support for the project, making necessary alliances to build momentum toward the idea.
Focus on win-win strategies, building a replacement economy within the target Baltimore population. Build Capacity and establish rigorous rules of engagement for the development of the community. Initially approach funding through existing HUD empowerment initiatives that exist. Jeffrey mentions one contact in DC that might provide funding. Gail discussed contact with the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Establish support within the foundations.
In developing a DesignShop to design the purpose of the Community NavCenter, include all stakeholders. Move beyond expectations to establish new rules of operation or ÓengagementÓ in the community. Understand opportunities in a genuine Learning Organization. Explore economic gain as sustainable over time.
A true NavCenter becomes a level playing field for all users and participants. Work through a series of iterations toward re-visioning the work and the community. Initiate project with own money then approach funders with demonstration of results through an RDS DesignShop
Following the close of the conference phone conversation the participants at Sojourner Douglas College engaged in a highly animated conversation elaborating upon the ideas contained in the call, referencing the scribed panels and exploring further work to be done. Among next steps, an inventory of all institutions, (not-for-profit and for-profit): housing associations, schools, business, churches, etc., in the target population was discussed as a potential means to discover latent leadership in the community. Use these leaders to build the initial participants along with recognized leaders in the general Baltimore population.

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Sojourner-Douglass College Resources

Sojourner-Douglass College Home Page

Solutions for success in higher education

http://www.sdc.edu/

Information about Sojourner-Douglass College from Peterson's

http://www.petersons.com/blackcolleges/profiles/sojourne.html
 

Information about MG Taylor Corporation

A variety of publications describing the work of MGT and its ValueWeb®

Seagate's Three-Day Revolution, by Philip Siekman, Fortune, February 2001

The story of how an MG Taylor Corporation DesignShop® Event helped to recreate a billion dollar hard drive maker.

http://www.ecompany.com/articles/mag/0,1640,9369,00.html

Group Genius, by Paul Roberts, Fast Company, October 1997

That's what creativity gurus Matt and Gail Taylor seek to unleash with their mind-bending workshops.

http://www.fastcompany.com/online/11/genius.html

Leaping the Abyss, Putting Group Genius To Work, by Gayle Pergamit and Chris Peterson, knOwhere Press, 1997

A book describing some of the MG Taylor Corporation's philosophies and methodologies.

Order from Amazon.com here, or read it online, courtesy of the Foresight Institute, here.

ReWorking the Workplace, Keys to Sustained Peak Performance, by Gail and Matt Taylor, Originally published in the December, 1993 issue of Mobius magazine.

http://www.mgtaylor.com/mgtaylor/jotm/spring97/mobius1.htm
Materials from Matt Taylor's website relevant to the Baltimore Project

Building Economy In the Inner City

Matt's web page devoted to this project.

"The task is to break the cycle, install new rules of engagement, rebuild community and make an economy. These are the steps to be taken. They are not a metaphor. They are real. There is no shortcut."

http://www.matttaylor.com/replacement_community/concept.htm

RDS - Rapid Deployment System

"The idea of the RDS is to deploy a capacity to facilitate a far better design process than happens in the political vacuum that is too often the afterbirth of a crisis. To provide a neutral, creative place where a community can deal with crisis and recreate itself. To do this without any upfront costs or obligations on the part of the community. And, then, after recovery, incorporate the community - as part of a ValueWeb system - going forward that returns the favor in an appropriate way, at the the appropriate time - a gift economy. Increasing returns."

http://www.matttaylor.com/public/rds.htm

UpSideDown Economics

"For almost three decades I have been thinking about the structure of our economic system, the deep effects (and often unintended consequences) it has on many aspects of our lives, and how this drives the decision processes and life-choices of most individuals. About 15 years ago, I started to outline a book. This has remained, largely, a "gotta do" although many pages of notes have been filled and hours of thought have been consumed. In DesignShop after DesignShop - and in the many ins and outs of starting an enterprise - I have watched the "workings" of an economic system based on the assumption of fundamental scarcity. This leads to the desire (of many) to over control the work process and spoil the commons which, in turn, creates more scarcity. It is a closed-loop system. A positive feedback loop - self fulfilling and reinforcing until there is a system break and the system fails, resets or leaps to another order."

http://www.matttaylor.com/public/UpSideDownEconomics.htm

NavCenter™ Information

As you look at this material, keep in mind that every NavCenter™ environment is different, and each one is designed, built and used in collaboration with the client because each client and each situation is unique.

An Introduction to the Navigation Center System

Navigation Center™ systems are flexible and innovative design facilities that corporations implement for the purpose of strategic planning, departmental redesign, new product and service launches, human development, product design, information technology strategy, knowledge management, culture change, mergers and acquisitions, e-commerce strategic development, and more.

http://www.mgtaylor.com/mgtaylor/navcenters_intro.htm

NavCenter Emergent Node on the MG Taylor Corporation Web Site

There is a lot of information here, so take it small bites so as not to get overwhelmed!

http://www.mgtaylor.com/mgtaylor/navctr_emerg_nod.htm

Home Page of the Borgess Navigation Center

The Borgess Health Alliance has been using a Navigation Center™ to accomplish a wide variety of goals for almost 2 years. This web site is a great resource for information about their expression of the Navigation Center concept.

http://navcenter.borgess.com/

Navigation Center™ Processes

Creating a Framework for Success Through Rules of Engagement

http://www.mgtaylor.com/mgtaylor/jotm/spring97/rulesofeng.htm

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Articles

A collection of resources from the iterations knowledge base that seem relevant in one way or another to what the Baltimore Project is trying to accomplish. This is intended to be a dynamic resource that will grow and change as the project evolves. E-mail items to Jeff (jjohnston@iterations) that you would like to see posted here.

A number of articles listed below are no longer available online. Contact Jeff if you would like copes of articles mailed to you.
Agent Title
Agent Author
Agent Source
Agent Date
Keywords
Chip Johnson
San Francisco Chronicle
November 5, 2001
redevelopment, real estate, community, education,

An article about the remarkable turnaround of a troubled apartment complex in Richmond, California.

"Owners A.F. Evans Co., a San Ramon real estate company, went far beyond fixing the place up. They turned it into a national model for a community of low-income residents."
Morris Newman
The Los Angeles Times
June 26, 2001
energy, solar, renewables, design, building, real estate,
With its wall of fins, abstract patterns and varying surfaces and colors, Colorado Court in Santa Monica is shaping up to be a real head-turner. But the apartment complex is no mere exercise in style over substance. What makes the project ground breaking in power-starved California is that it will generate nearly all its own energy: electricity, heat and hot water, all from alternative technologies.
Sarah Williams Goldhagen
The American Prospect
December 17, 2001
architecture, design, building, World Trade Center, social capital, community, innovation, education, urban planing,
"A nationally accessible architecture curriculum for secondary schools would increase the demand for good architecture and go a long way toward facilitating enlightened patronage in the United States. So would the commissioning of architecture through well-organized competitions run and judged by professionals in collaboration with clients--a policy, in the case of public buildings, that could be mandated by law. And so would a revamped regulatory system that required builders to use professional architects for a wider range of public and private buildings; that made private developers more answerable to the needs of the larger public good; and that mitigated the impact of often reactionary local regulatory forces."
Phillip J. Gill
Knowledge Management
November 2001
architecture, knowledge work, environment,
"Architecture has always played a key role in promoting human interaction, but only recently has its potential to encourage both the creation and sharing of knowledge been recognized. Recent studies suggest that architecture -- and the related fields of interior design and space planning -- can enhance information exchange among knowledge workers by making spaces for knowledge creation along with other spaces for knowledge sharing."
Brian Dumaine
Fortune
December 10, 2001
architecture, design, building, environment, economics, McDonough,

William McDonough is. This environmental architect wants to radically shake up the world. If he succeeds, business will never be the same.

McDonough celebrates abundance. He believes in passive energy systems that will let you take the longest hot-water shower you could ever want, factories that can grow without polluting the environment, and goods that, when thrown away, become food for other living things or can be cheaply and easily recycled into high-quality products.

Wisconsin Public Service Corporation

energy, solar, alternative, renewable,
"Imagine you own a building - a home, school, business, warehouse, hotel, restaurant, store, or whatever you like. Imagine your building is producing some of the electricity it needs in a quiet and clean manner with no fuel costs or large equipment. Imagine the electricity-generating device has a long lifetime and low maintenance costs with no moving parts, noise, emissions, or fuel lines. Now imagine that this device is actually the walls, roof, and windows of your building -- the same structure that keeps out the rain, heat, snow, and cold. It's not Science Fiction! The device is called Building Integrated Photovoltaics, and is a very real part of building construction today. "
John B. Horrigan
Pew Internet & American Life Project
November 20, 2001
Internet, real estate, urban development, Web, social capital,

"The Internet is injecting new energy into many U.S. cities as public, private, and nonprofit institutions realize that a powerful new communications tool can transform the traditional roles of government and business. In social terms, this promises a closer, more interactive relationship between a community and its citizens. To a city's business community, it offers the dream of a local or regional economy transformed, Silicon Valley-style, by high-tech success.

This report examines how institutions in five cities are adapting to the Internet. Its main focus is on economic and community development organizations in those cities that have sought to use the Internet to improve performance or broadly benefit the community. The cities studied are Austin, Texas; Cleveland, Ohio; Nashville, Tennessee; Portland, Oregon, and Washington, D.C.

In exploring how institutions in these cities are using the Internet, this research asks whether the Internet is serving as a catalyst to change the "rules of the game" that shape social capital -- the informal norms and customs that grease the wheels of urban life. It also looks at how communities themselves may shape the Internet by developing Internet content to serve their needs in specific ways. And by comparing what is happening in all five cities, the report makes recommendations on best practices for cities seeking to take advantage of the Internet."
Bill Steigerwald
Reason Online
June 2001
architecture, design, building, urban studies, Jacobs, real estate, development,
Urban studies legend Jane Jacobs on gentrification, the New Urbanism, and her legacy.
David Weiner, Trevor M. Harris, and William J. Craig
Spoleto Workshop
December 2001
community, real estate, development, geographic information systems, GIS
"Geographic information systems (GIS) and geographic information technologies (GIT) are increasingly employed in research and development projects that incorporate community participation.... There is also a rapidly growing network of planning professionals interested in how GIs can merge with community participation in the context of neighborhood revitalization and urban planning."
Gian Carlo Magnoli, Leonardo Amerigo Bonanni, Rania Khalaf, and Michael Fox
MIT Media Lab
July 2001
architecture, design, building, economics, AI, social capital, genetic code, built environment, sustainable, Smart Village, developing countries, biomimicry, metaphor, ecosystem, urban planning,

"The paper explores innovative environmentally responsible and socially proactive ways to build in developing countries. The proposed methodology was tested with the design of a Smart Village in Egypt, awarded second prize at an international competition. Our design approach is based on environmental and social sustainability and works as an artificial genetic code."
Duane Noriyuki
Los Angeles Times
June 12, 2001
construction, social entrepreneurship,
Fix-It program lets juvenile offenders repair their lives with nails and boards.
Geeta Pradhan and Rajesh K. Pradhan
The Bridge
Spring 2001
real estate, innovation, cities, urban, community, Calvino

"Combining the best features of city and country life in one place can create the diversity and sense of community needed to nurture creativity and innovation."

"The idea explored in the following pages has precedents in wisdom drawn from the past and echoes the vast literature on administrative decentralization. It takes into account some of today's scientific and technological advances, and it tempers the grandeur and visions of utopia with the realization that human activity and population growth can no longer keep pace with the world's finite resources. Like Calvino's spaces within the inferno, it tries to give legitimacy and room to small trends and innovative concepts emerging in several cities in response to problems created by urbanization. It seeks to offer a new model of development-a hybrid approach-that combines the best of rural and urban attributes to create "a village in a city, a city in a village." Metaphorically, it urges us to look outside cities as we rethink today's urban centers and design those of tomorrow. "
Wendell Berry
Orion
Winter 2001
global commons, globalization, upside-down-economics, local control, corporation, environment

"A viable neighborhood is a community; and a viable community is made up of neighbors who cherish and protect what they have in common."

"So far as I can see, the idea of a local economy rests upon only two principles: neighborhood and subsistence. In a viable neighborhood, neighbors ask themselves what they can do or provide for one another, and they find answers that they and their place can afford. This, and nothing else, is the practice of neighborhood. This practice must be, in part, charitable, but it must also be economic, and the economic part must be equitable; there is a significant charity in just prices."
Kurt Larsen
OECD Observer
August 1, 1999
architecture, design, building, real estate, cities, innovation, economics, learning, education, culture,
The concept of a "learning" city or region is relatively new, but yet it is at the core of a growing number of regional development strategies. What exactly is a learning city? And does it work?
Roger Vincent
Los Angeles Times
July 3, 2001
development, Real Estate, urban, USC, community, academic,

Real estate: Intensive summer course teaches students how to convert neglected urban properties to better use.

"Better uses for stagnating or troubled urban land is exactly what USC's Minority Program in Real Estate was created to accomplish. The L.A. riots of 1992 gave birth to several well-intentioned nonprofit developers who often lacked the skills to implement their aspirations, said Stuart Gabriel, director of the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate. So the Minority Program was kicked off the following year to give would-be builders some street smarts in the unforgiving arena of real estate finance and working knowledge of such arcana as cap rates, valuation and pro formas. It also gives them a foot in the door of a clannish industry in which the right contacts can make or break a deal. "
One Housing Solution
Sue McAllister
San Jose Mercury News
February 5, 2001
building, development, real estate, urban planning, housing, village, malls

A short supply of housing -- especially housing affordable to the working class -- is one of the most tenacious problems facing Silicon Valley. Henry Cisneros, CEO of American City Vista in San Antonio, thinks Silicon Valley and other urban areas can ease the housing crunch by developing communities of well designed home on underused urban properties, such as failed strip malls.

Go to http://www.americancityvista.com/AboutACV.htm to read more about American City Vista.
Florence Williams
WIRED
February 2002
architecture, design, building, economics, environment, McDonough, manufacturing, ecology, auto,
The future of manufacturing will be built on industrial-strength ecology, says architect William McDonough. The first step: Turn FordÕs legendary River Rouge plant into a lean, green, profit machine.
George Bugliarello
The Bridge
Spring 2001
architecture, design, building, innovation, community, urban,
Balancing the biological, social, and machine elements of modern cities will be key to creating environmentally sustainable, emotionally satisfying urban centers of the future.
Stacey Fowler
GreenBiz.com
September 25, 2001
architecture, design, building, sustainable, economics, green,
"A revolution in the way we build is underway as architects, city planners, government officials, homeowners, and others embrace green forest products. Distributors and manufacturers of building materials from lumber to floor polish are responding to increasing consumer interest in sustainable development issues."
Penny Bonda
ISdesigNET
January - February 2001
green architecture, building, design, energy

"The mission of the Greenpeace organization drove the design decisions for its new headquarters, which also happen to be inarguably brilliant in the aesthetic."

"The Greenpeace USA headquarter office in Washington, DC, is a case study in how excellence results from a committed client, a motivated design team and their collective resolve to do the right thing."
Urban Planning in Curitiba
Jonas Rabinovitch and Josef Leitman
Scientific American
March 1996
urban planning, Curitiba, architecture, design, building, sprawl, transit,
"A Brazilian city challenges conventional wisdom and relies on low technology to improve the quality of urban life."
Stewart Brand
Whole Earth Magazine
Winter 1998
architecture, design, building, urban studies, Jacobs, real estate, development,
An an interview with Jane Jacobs, whose The Death and Life of Great American Cities changed urban planning and policy by simply asking: what makes a vital city?

 

Notes:

(1) These sources require a subscription for access. Contact Jeff if you would like help getting copies of these articles. In addition to providing you with a copy of the article, this will inform us about how useful these particular items are to the ValueWeb ® and whether or not we should pursue getting an institutional subscription to these journals.

(2) Clicking on these titles will download the pdf document (if you have Adobe Acrobat Reader and your browser is properly configured). Acrobat is available free from Adobe.

 

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