Where's Indy Headed? We can decide!

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Permalink Reply by Cody Fague on September 2, 2009 at 1:37pm

These are excellent questions, Terry.

Public transit is a pet issue of mine. As well all know, the transit options in Indianapolis are inadequate. This is very unfortunate, because investing in smart infrastructure such as public transit is key to sustainable growth and development.

But why should we care about growth or development? To answer this, I would say that our global relevance as a city is at stake. The ubiquitous contemporary claim that "the world is flat" is no joke. Aside from the basic goal of taking care of ourselves and our citizens, we obviously want Indianapolis to succeed on a global scale. Because of this desire, I submit the following questions for discussion:

What will Indy's role be globally? What could we be known for?

What attracts young educated people to our city? What attracts young entrepreneurs and big businesses alike to open up shop?

How will we prepare for peak consumption? What will we do when oil prices go up again? What will happen if we run out of raw manufacturing materials? What effect does Indianapolis' (and cities like it) consumption habits have on our nation's foreign policy?

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Permalink Reply by Terry East on September 2, 2009 at 1:56pm

Great points and questions, Cody! These are the kinds of issues I would like to see discussed and solutions proposed. The citizens of Indianapolis and the metroplex can make things happen!

Thanks for joining the group.... Invite your friends to join the discussion as well... We especially need folks who want to make a difference in public transit... It seems to a common concern.

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Permalink Reply by Bruce LaDuke on September 2, 2009 at 11:09pm

What you are describing is long-range planning (LRP). Some IN communities have long-range plans, but I don't think the majority of these are comprehensive, consider future trends and weak signals, or are integral.

I use a SOFI that I modified to show how this should work...it builds trends and weak signals into the LRP process. See here.

I created the Future Indiana Group and website to start this dialogue in IN. Integral LRP is used to look across various plans in an integral manner and integral dialogue is a trade-off, problem solving, future vision discussion to formulate solutions.

Optimally, I'm hoping to form a regional consortium of LR Planners and help integral midwest LRPs. I'm working with I-Open in Cleveland to this end. I-Open manages the open dialogue and I'm helping them with Integral LRP and futuring.

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