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Crowdsourcing Housing Redevelopment in Buffalo, NY
One of the biggest problems in Buffalo, NY is vacant housing. Buffalo has one of the highest rates of vacant housing in the Unites States, and the problem is not going to go away without better information sharing and collaboration between goverment, non-profits, and citizens.
There are some positive developmenst on this front. For example, a non-profit called PUSH (People United for Sustainable Housing-(http://www.pushbuffalo.org) is working on a project that will tranform three abandoned buildings into environmentally friendly apartment units using green technology (http://bit.ly/bqwZpx). Though it is only one project, this is a great model for future initiatives.
In order for models like this to spread we need to use innovative methods for distributing information about problems in our community (i.e. vacant housing) and potential solutions (i.e. innovative projects such as the one being undertaken by PUSH). The Buffalo News has a searchable database of vacant houses in Buffalo (http://bit.ly/arVIS1), but the design of this search tool is very rudimentary.
Ushahidi (http://www.ushahidi.com/), on the other hand, is a great example of how the internet can be used to gather and distribute information. This Evoke objective has exposed me to some new ideas for how to design a website that fosters collaborative action in Buffalo. My plan is to make ReBuffalo.org a powerful and user friendly tool for gathering and using information. The idea of creating a collaborative filter (http://bit.ly/dlJbhb) that would allow for the most useful information to bubble to the top is one that I will have to learn more about. A collaborative filter may be an important piece of the ReBuffalo.org puzzle as I attempt to figure out how to design a website that doesn't just create dialogue. For ReBuffalo.org to be successful it has to be useful for bringing people together to actually get stuff done.
Views: 25
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Comment by Shakwei Mbindyo on April 17, 2010 at 3:29am
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+1LI. Why are the houses empty - is it because "no one" knows that they are vacant?
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Comment by Nathan P. Wallace on April 19, 2010 at 3:22am
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The primary reason for the vacant housing problem is Buffalo's declining economy. Since the second half of the 20th century Buffalo has lost a lot of good jobs to other parts of the United States and to other countries. Therefore, many residents of the city of Buffalo have moved to the surrounding suburbs and to other parts of the country, leaving a housing stock that was built for a city that had a larger population and more wealth.
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