(Passive) Public Engagement…a side-effect of Social Distancing?
Last week Jess and I packed up my car and headed to the Kickapoo River valley in SW Wisconsin for a little (and I do mean little) public engagement that included a mix of socially-distanced interviews, masks, outdoor discussions and lots of driving for a new project. Though it might be our new normal to Zoom for most interactions, it probably goes without saying that there just is not a good replacement for in-person discussion and experiencing a new place…even if it does not look the way it used to.
Before winning the project, I had never been to the Kickapoo area, in fact, I had ever even heard of it. Like most Minnesotans I have been to La Crosse many times (mostly to watch my husband Mike play a show – he is a drummer) but never have I ventured further east into the driftless region. After experiencing the Kickapoo area for a couple days and doing our best to socially distance while gaining a better understanding the area, I learned something new (I love when that happens)! As planners we define public engagement too narrowly, and we really should talk about engagment more broadly. Public engagement should not just be a public open house or online survey (which we are doing as part of this project), but it should also include the time and effort it takes to experience an area the way the public does. For example, on our trip we visited the local shops in town, sat at the restaurants and looked for groceries - is that really public engagement? Today, with my adjusted pandemic perspective, I think it is. Those passive public engagement activities required little-to-no interaction with people, but they revealed a lot about the area and what it’s like to live there…like finding fresh produce was hard in the stores, but easy if you were willing to shop at roadside stands. By being present we were able to observe who was eating at the restaurants, who was shopping in the stores, and who was playing in the park. We watched the Amish community travel through town on the local roadways, and we drove the rolling and hilly topography that undoubtedly impacted our travel times despite our google-lady’s estimated time of arrival (yes, she had it wrong, and we were hungry). Without a single discussion we were able to learn about the area just by experiencing the spaces the same way visitors, residents and patrons do.
I learned on our trip that the passive public engagement was equally as informative as the more formal, and typical, public engagement we conducted while we were there. So while the pandemic has obviously interrupted how many of us think about public engagement, last week highlighted an opportunity that may not have presented itself without the pandemic. There is a lot we can learn about our businesses, our communities, and our neighborhoods by simply experiencing and observing our surroundings. Now I just have to figure out how to write that into our next proposal!
-Jennifer