- Alexander, C. (1977). A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction. New York: Oxford University Press. A fascinating resource when planning community spaces as well as individual dwellings.
- Ames, S.C. (Ed.). (1993). A Guide to Community Visioning: Hands-On Information For Local Communities (pp. 13-22). Portland: Oregon Visions Project. A basic guidebook to community visioning. Chapter Three, “Visioning in Your Community”, is a good stepping off point for this topic.
- Ayers, J. (1996). Essential Elements of Strategic Visioning. In N. Walzer (Ed.), Community Strategic Visioning Programs (pp. 21-36). Westport, CT: Praeger. Articles on the basics of visioning.
- Big Small All. Chapter 3 – Moving Forward: Objectives and Action Strategies: Collaborative. Part of Champaign County’s recent visioning project report, detailing goals related to creating collaborative communities.
- Bishop, A.P., et al (2001). Afya: Social and digital technologies that reach across the digital divide. First Monday, 6(4). This article is about the Afya project, a participatory action research project, “designed to engage African American women in assessing and increasing their access to quality health information and services.” A good example of how much better technology works when it is designed by the people it is meant to help.
- CDC Web site. Outline of what healthy community means from the perspective of public health officials. This is good to look at because it shows all the different aspects of community health.
- Charrettes. “A charrette is a meeting to resolve a problem or issue. Within a specified time limit, participants work together intensely to reach a resolution.” Similar to visioning, but less vision-y.
- Dunn County (WI) visioning. 10 min. presentation made before community members in Wisconsin about a forthcoming visioning process.
- Community Voices on Champaign Schools. “WILL is interviewing people who come to community planning forums created by the Unit 4 school district in Champaign, Illinois. Voices of Great Schools Together captures on video some of the hopes, challenges and perspectives of community members, parents and students regarding Champaign public schools.”
- Future Search. Focused, three-day conferences that foster planning and visioning-type activities.
- Great Schools, Together. “Conceived of by the Unit 4 School Board and supported by the Administration, this initiative brought community members together to share their vision for our schools, now and in the future.”
- Healthy People 2010 (2000). This is a report on the federal government’s goals to improve community health by 2010. The top-down approach compared to the goals of individual communities.
- Lasker, R., and Weiss, E. (2003) “Broadening Participation in Community Problem Solving: A Multidisciplinary Model to Support Collaborative Practiceand Research.” Journal of Urban Health, Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, 80 (1), 14–47. A model for improving community participation in problem-solving. This article seeks to overcome perceived shortfalls of community-based research.
- Latham, J. R. (1995). Visioning: the concept, trilogy, and process. Quality Progress. 28(4), 65-68.
- NCDD’s visioning and planning. The National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation’s clearinghouse for visioning resources.
- Carl Neu, consultant. Like Steven Ames, Carl Neu is a consultant to local governments and organizations on the topics of improved governance and strategizing/visioning.
- Policy Link and the California Endowment. Why Place Matters (2007). Connects health, place, race, and socioeconomic status; case studies and recommendations for how to solve community health problems.
- Schindler-Rainman, E. and Lippitt, R. (1992). Building Collaborative Communities, in M.R. Weisbrod (ed.), Discovering Common Ground (pp. 35-44). San Fransisco: Berrett-Koehler. Discusses how to foster a collaborative spirit at visioning/planning conferences.
Chip's journey 