Sunday, April 29, 2007

Results of Community Workshop's Dotmocracy



At last Tuesday's Community Workshop, we asked everyone to answer the following three questions...

1) What would bring you down to Sandy Blvd. more often?
2) What would you like other people to think of Sandy Blvd. ten years from now?
3) Name 3 things you think would make Parkrose better?

After each person wrote down their answers, all the responses to each question were written on large sheets of paper and hung in the hallway. Everyone attending was then given red and green dots, asked to read all the responses, and to vote for the responses they agreed with the most. A red dot indicated a person's first choice, while a green dot denoted their second. As people voted, dots began to cluster around certain responses best capturing the larger group's opinion.

As we hoped, we got a wide variety of responses to each question. To better understand the results of the exercise and begin the process of transforming the responses into goals, PlanPDX categorized each response and calculated the score it recieved (2 points for each red dot, 1 for each green).

Whew. Got that out of the way. Enough of that - here are the top five responses for each question...

1) What would bring you down to Sandy Blvd. more often?
-Grocery Store: 34 points, 27% of total points
-Greater Dining Options: 16, 13%
-Specific Specialty Stores (Bookstores, Bike Shops, etc.): 15, 12%
-Less Prostitution, Crime and Drugs: 12, 9%
-Improve Neighborhood Appearance: 9, 7%

2)
What would you like other people to think of Sandy Blvd. ten years from now?
-Multi-Cultural Area: 18 points, 17% of total points
-Safe and Well-Maintained: 15, 14%
-Family Friendly Area: 14, 13%
-Prostitution Free Area: 11, 10%
-Local Business Oriented: 9, 8%

3) Name three things you think would make Parkrose better?
-Fewer Adult-Oriented Businesses: 27 points, 20% of total points
-Encourage Neighborhood Unity, Communication & Involvement: 19, 14%
-Improve Neighborhood Appearance: 19, 14%
-Decrease Prostitution, Crime and Drugs: 11, 8%
-Prioritize Children: 9, 6%

5 comments:

abfportlandor said...

PlanPDX is doing an awesome job! The workshop was tremendous! We thank you, for helping reunify the neighborhood and business district, for helping us redefine our direction and goals, for being the wind beneath our wings, as Parkrose the Phoenix takes flight again!

mw

Davie said...

I couldn't make it to the meeting, but I'd like to have come. I'd like a decent cafe, and a New Seasons or Trader Joe's would be nice. And a bookstore would be cool too. But I think the first step would be to get rid of all the strip clubs and crap like that. Then we could really start thinking about how to improve.

Anonymous said...

What a great oppurtunity to meet local residents and business owners. There is a pride here that I didn't believe existed. I was very impressed by the students and delighted that they chose this project.

Jason Diceman said...

Hi PlanPDX folks. Great to see your participtory process in action.

Have you seen www.dotmocracy.org ?
I created these special sheets and process guidelines to help advance the dotmocracy process.

See
Advanced Dotmocracy Compared to Traditional Dotmocracy
http://dotmocracy.org/appendix-02

Hope you find it useful!

-jd

Anonymous said...

Thanks Jason - we are always looking for new ideas and techniques. Appreciate the link...