RALEIGH – As leaders of the Dorthea Dix Park Conservancy and the City of Raleigh gather with the public on Thursday to discuss latest developments in a master plan for the Dix property, they will already have received input from several thousand people through Neighborland, an online technology platform.

“We’re helping the City of Raleigh and Dix Park Conservancy collaborate with the public in an accessible, participatory, and equitable way,” says CEO and co-founder Dan Parham who lives in Raleigh and is a former senior executive at Internet giant Yahoo!

“It’s difficult for most people to find the time to attend community meetings in person. By giving residents a way to engage in the process on their own time, the Dix Park team is reaching a broader, more representative group of participants.”

Sean Malone, President and CEO of Dorothea Dix Park Conservancy, says Neighborland is providing important support to the project. He describes Neighborland as “an online community engagement platform being used for important projects around the country. The online community engagement for Dix Park is happening on Neighborland. He has helped us design and helps manage that platform.”

The Dix project is one of a growing customer base for Neighborland, which recently launched projects in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Mesa, and Orlando.

Miami-Dade County, for example, signed on to use Neighborland in 2016 for a transportation project. “By collaborating with Neighborland, an online platform used to engage people on the web, the Department aims to collect valuable input directly from its passengers,” the county explained.

A video explains the Safer 6th Street project in San Francisco that includes Neighborland:

Think of Neighborland as something similar to social media – but an online platform that is kept private and is free of advertising. The technology’s legacy dates back to 2011 when Parham and his brother Tee Parham launched the project along with Candy Chang, who has worked with the United Nations and the World Bank.

According to the firm’s website the platform allows clients to:

A video at YouTube explains how Neighborland works:

Neighborland was selected for the Dix project after responding to a request for proposals, or RFP. And as the Dix project moves ahead a growing number of people are weighing in on how the property should be utilized.

“We’ve had almost 5,000 people participate so far,” Parham says. That number is important, he adds, as it reflects interest and participation.

“This approach is critical to ensure that we meet our goal of creating a park for everyone,” he explains.

“As Jane Jacobs so eloquently said, ‘Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.'” Jacobs is best known for her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities.

‘ADVOCACY PLANNING THEORY’

The platform’s guiding principal is what Parham calls “advocacy planning theory, which demonstrates that a highly participatory approach leads to better outcomes.”

It’s his belief that “everyone should have a voice in the design of such a historic project like Dix. Residents, community leaders, and municipal governments each have valuable perspectives, and public dialogue must be accessible, ongoing, and inclusive throughout the design, engineering, construction, and stewardship phases of the project.”

Parham’s firm also believes that utilizing Neighborland can accelerate development even though more people are involved.

“Solutions to our communities’ most important issues can be complex, and often organizations need residents to engage in a succession of actions over years to make historic projects a reality,” he explains.

“Cultural, political, social, and physical change in our neighborhoods is slow. Projects like Dix Park can take decades to complete. Our purpose is to help accelerate the design process in the right direction. This approach is critical to ensure that we meet our goal of creating a park for everyone.”

MORE CONVENIENT PARTICIPATION

Neighborland continues to work with the city and Dix Park Conservancy to gather public feedback in “an accessible, participatory, and equitable way.”

Importantly, he points out Neighborland also offers people to provide input from the convenience of the Internet.

“It’s difficult for most people to find the time to attend community meetings in person. By giving residents a way to engage in the process on their own time, the Dix Park team is reaching a broader, more representative group of participants,” Parham says.

“Our mission at Neighborland is to empower people to shape the development of their neighborhoods. We exist to improve the way city agencies, local organizations, universities, and foundations collaborate with their communities. Technology should help civic organizations deliver radically more efficient and responsive services. It doesn’t replace traditional community engagement forums, but it does help get more people involved who normally are excluded. In some cases, we have helped cities engage 10 to 100 times more people than their traditional processes. Our vision is a world where everyone works together to create places that reflect what matters most to them, both as individuals and as a community.

FAMILY CONNECTION

Parham, who is a native of Wilson and says his family’s roots stretch back 200 years in North Carolina, is intensely interested personally as well as professionally in the Dix project.

“I have followed the project for the past decade, and was delighted when we were approached by several of design teams across the country who responded to the City’s initial RFP,” he recalls. “Our family has lived in North Carolina for 200 years, and we had a family member who recovered at Dorothea Dix hospital. I feel a personal responsibility to help the city create a place for well-being, reflection, and restoration.”

Having decided to move back to Raleigh from Silicon Valley and to grow Neighborland here as well as other locations, Parham said he early on decided he wanted to help the Dix planning in some way.

“I began attending many of the early community outreach efforts and offered to help in my role as a Subject Matter Expert in public engagement technology for 100 Resilient Cities, pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation,” he says.

“After MVVA was selected as the winning design firm, the City approached us about supporting the project from a technology perspective. It’s an honor to be a part of the team.”

Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates was selected last year to serve as lead consultant for the Dix project.

According to Parham, Neighborland also  helps its clients generate business.

To date, Neighborland’s track record includes working with more than 200 cities, universities, foundations and non-profits with more than 3 million people having participated, Parham says. “[T]hese projects have yielded over $1 billion in social and economic impact.”