Community Meetings Are Great, But Have You Tried Direct Action?

Max Grinnell
Nov 1 · 2 min read

I was invited to attend an elaborate press event and forum addressing a Pressing Policy Matter (PPM) yesterday in the middle of the day.

I didn’t go.

I had to work.

Most people have to work in the middle of the day.

Who is usually at these events, you ask? As someone who used to go to many of them for work, I can tell you. Vested interests, local elites, international elites, a few journalists, elected officials, property abutters, municipal poobahs, and The Same Five Community Members With Gobs of Free Time (TSFCMWGOFT).

As it turns out, there’s solid research about TSFCMWGOFTs.

I did my due diligence and looked back at the social media accounts of this most recent PPM. The demographic conformed to the aforementioned profile, with the inclusion of one fellow sleeping on a chair who didn’t fit the profile. He might have just wandered into the meeting for a bit of non-prescription sleep aid, who knows.

Amidst conversations about rampant socioeconomic inequality in this country, folks have proposed solutions to this problem of less than diverse representation at important community meetings, gatherings, design charities, forums, talk-backs, chat-backs, and so on.

Some have said “Let’s pay people to go to these meetings” and others say “Let’s hold them at more convenient hours. There’s also been non-traditional outreach in terms of utilizing street teams in public places to gather public input on various proposals, including the forthcoming Boston Common improvements. The list goes on and on in terms of ways to encourage and ensure a more diverse and representative portrait of “the community” at these community meetings.

I don’t think most of these approaches are terribly effective, as they still mostly cull the same demographics of people with available time, money, and interest.

The way forward will most likely be direct action.

We’ve seen it most recently in Chile and we’ll see more of it here soon.

Max Grinnell

Written by

I teach urban studies in Boston and Chicago, write books, and oh yeah: I’m the mayor of Boscago. Twitter/IG: @theurbanologist. maxgrinnell@gmail.com

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