The 'fourth wall' is a term used to describe the imaginary barrier separating an audience from a stage. When an actor speaks directly to the audience, or an audience member interacts with the cast, the fourth wall has been 'broken'. In this video Dave Meslin argues that City Hall also has a fourth wall and forces us to ask how does one break the fourth wall at City Hall to create a culture of local citizen engagement?

This series features highlights from the ongoing exhibit The Fourth Wall: Transforming City Hall. The exhibit, on now at the Urbanspace Gallery, considers possible avenues to break down the barriers to participation in civic life that exist at Toronto's City Hall. The Fourth Wall identifies a number of areas for improvement to step up civic engagement at City Hall. Examining best practices in other cities and major gaps in this city, the exhibit yields 36 recommendations. While there is certainly much room for improvement, the City is undertaking a variety of initiatives that deserve acknowledgement. Toronto Open Data Launched in 2009, Toronto Open Data has made over fifty data sets available to the public on a variety of topics including election results, bike counts, billboard applications, and Councillors’ attendance records. The initiative seeks to improve the transparency and accessibility of local government. Toronto.ca/Council The City Clerk’s Office has been recognized with three awards for their new web portal which improves public access to Council proceedings. In addition to improving the accessibility of agendas, background reports and minutes, the site has easy to use feedback buttons to solicit public input.  

This series features highlights from the ongoing exhibit The Fourth Wall: Transforming City Hall. The exhibit, on now at the Urbanspace Gallery, considers possible avenues to break down the barriers to participation in civic life that exist at Toronto's City Hall. Previously, we discussed how the geography of local representation has changed in this city over the past two centuries. Like it or not, these days 100 Queen St. West is the heart of our local democracy. Yet, very few citizens walk through the buildings (heavy!) doors to attend council meetings or find out more about how to get involved with the City. Here are a few simple ideas to make City Hall more hospitable to citizens.

This series features highlights from the ongoing exhibit The Fourth Wall: Transforming City Hall. The exhibit, on now at the Urbanspace Gallery, considers possible avenues to break down the barriers to participation in civic life that exist at Toronto's City Hall.   In previous posts, we’ve discussed how City communications and election scheduling could help to improve Toronto’s elections. In this post, we’ll discuss changes that could be made at the ballot box. Elections are supposed to deliver a City Council that represents and reflects the views of voters. Yet, in practice, our current municipal voting system misses the mark. ‘Winners’ in local races often do not represent a majority of voters. Indeed, Councillors have been recently elected with as little as 17% of the vote. Campaigns often turn negative as candidates try to persuade voters that their opponent is a poor choice. Voters resort to ‘strategic voting’ and new candidates are pushed out of local races to avoid vote splitting.

This series features highlights from the ongoing exhibit The Fourth Wall: Transforming City Hall. The exhibit, on now at the Urbanspace Gallery, considers possible avenues to break down the barriers to participation in civic life that exist at Toronto's City Hall. It’s fair to say that there is room for improvement when it comes to municipal elections. With 51% voter turnout in Toronto’s 2010 race, ideas that enhance voter engagement and increase the accountability of our elected officials should be explored. Anyone who has hosted an event before knows that if you want to maximize attendance, you should hold it on the weekend. While Toronto’s elections are held on Mondays, most other beloved city-wide events are held (at least in part) on weekends: the Calvacade of Lights, Pride, Caribana, Nuit Blanche and many, many more. Elections are successfully hosted on weekends in other Canadian cities - Montrealers and Vancouverites cast their ballots on Saturdays.

This series features highlights from the ongoing exhibit The Fourth Wall: Transforming City Hall. The exhibit, on now at the Urbanspace Gallery, considers possible avenues to break down the barriers to participation in civic life that exist at Toronto's City Hall. Elections. They are one of the first things we associate with citizen engagement. Whether voting or running, elections represent a significant opportunity to shape your local representative body. The following three posts in this series will deal with changes that could be made to the City's election process to improve engagement, beginning with the City's election outreach and communication efforts. In an era of low voter turnout, the City's election website is an important tool for attracting potential voters and making it easier for them to execute their civic duty. Unfortunately, in its current incarnation, the election website is incomplete and awkward to navigate making it difficult for voters to access even basic information. These screenshots from September 2010 make this point clear - we have not yet achieved Web 1.0.

This series features highlights from the ongoing exhibit The Fourth Wall: Transforming City Hall. The exhibit, on now at the Urbanspace Gallery, considers possible avenues to break down the barriers to participation in civic life that exist at Toronto’s City Hall. Over the past two centuries, Toronto residents have experienced significant changes in local political representation. As towns have been annexed and amalgamated, politicians have been asked to represent the interests of more constituents and residents have been asked to accommodate a shift in the geography of their representation. While such a shift is not uncommon in an age of increased government efficiency, many other cities have adopted new models and structures to respond to these changes. As the family tree below shows, today’s City of Toronto is the result of a long history of annexation. Over nineteen City Councils have been dissolved since the 1830s. With their dissolution came the loss of local town halls and a reduction in access to local decision-making structures. For example, Malvern residents lived four kilometers from their City Hall in Scarborough. Post-amalgamation, these residents now live over twenty kilometers from City Hall. This shift in the geography of political access has real implications for civic engagement.

This series features highlights from the ongoing exhibit The Fourth Wall: Transforming City Hall. The exhibit, on now at the Urbanspace Gallery, considers possible avenues to break down the barriers to participation in civic life that exist at Toronto’s City Hall. Citizens in many cities (including Toronto) choose to engage in the local decision making process through various forms of self-organization. Residents associations and other citizens groups, when organized effectively, can raise the voice of local citizens in the policy development process and contribute to a culture of civic engagement. Toronto has a rich history of citizen organizing, one that could play an even greater role in today’s political climate. In previous decades, Toronto’s residents associations have provided a structure for citizens to engage at the local level. While some associations remain active today, others have faded into non-existence. One possible reason for this decline could be the lack of support associations receive from the City. There isn’t even an official list or map of existing associations. (David Topping has recently rectified this).

This series features highlights from the ongoing exhibit The Fourth Wall: Transforming City Hall. The exhibit, on now at the Urbanspace Gallery, considers possible avenues to break down the barriers to participation in civic life that exist at Toronto’s City Hall. As the 2012 budget discussion heats up, citizens are liable to feel that their priorities are not reflected in the proposed spending. Emotions surrounding the spending decisions and the process by which they are reached are justifiably intense - these choices shape the city around us. The public is invited to engage in this process through a series of consultation events and activities (this year's festivities begin December 7th). As Councillor Ford put it this past year, “we always listen to the people.” Yet many participants walk away feeling like their participation hasn't made an impact on the outcomes. Several jurisdictions are experimenting with a greater degree of citizen involvement in their budgeting processes. Toronto-native Josh Lerner, the brains behind a recent initiative in NYC, defines participatory budgeting as “a democratic process that enables ordinary community members to directly decide how budget money is spent”. The process gives residents a deeper understanding of where their money goes, the real of costs of running a city and their own community’s priorities. To date, more than 1,200 municipalities have initiated some form of participatory budgeting to engage their citizens in the decision making process. I’ll discuss four examples here.

This series features highlights from the ongoing exhibit The Fourth Wall: Transforming City Hall. The exhibit, on now at the Urbanspace Gallery, considers possible avenues to break down the barriers to participation in civic life that exist at Toronto’s City Hall. On Tuesday, I covered the city’s planning application notices and some ideas about how they could be improved to better engage the public in decision making. Let’s say you have an above average tolerance for poor design and your interest in a particular issue is piqued by one of these notices. A whole slew of barriers may still prevent you from making your voice heard. Scheduling Most public consultations at City Hall and our Civic Centres are held during the daytime. During the 9-5 hours, most individuals are working and unable to step out for a public meeting. Even if you are free, it’s tough to know when your particular issue will come up as the timing of each item is not announced. If you don’t have the luxury to wait around all day, it’s likely that you’ll miss your chance to speak. This leads to a bias in public comments as private companies can afford to have lobbyists wait all day, but residents usually cannot.  In the past year, we’ve also seen the introduction of ‘24-hour meetings’ which discourage participation by forcing deputants to attend meetings into the night.