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Candy Chang

Co-Founder, Civic Center

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If you could ask one question to all of your neighbors, what would you ask?

Live TED Conversation: Join TED Fellow Candy Chang

Candy is a public installation artist, designer, and urban planner who likes to make cities more comfortable for people. She's passionate about redefining the ways we use public space to share information that can improve our neighborhoods and our personal well-being. See more of her at http://candychang.com and http://civiccenter.cc.

This conversation will open at 3pm EST on Monday, August 1, 2011.

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Topics: Civic Engagement Live Conversation
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    Peter Ghin

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    Aug 2 2011: Great thread. One thing that fascinates me in this discussion about community connectedness is the role media/technology plays in contributing to 'empathy fatigue'. We are connected to so many more people today that it becomes psychologically fraught to continually extend our empathy to those beyond the social/familial tribes our human minds were designed to love and care for. I'm exploring this notion in a participatory arts project called Walk the Talk where I invite people to a public park in Melbourne (AUS) and ask them to pair up with a stranger and go on an en mass self-directed stroll for an hour. We'll see how it goes! P http://www.pozible.com/index.php/archive/index/1191/description/0/0
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      Candy Chang 500+

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      Aug 2 2011: Hey Peter - That's a good point and good luck with your project. It's great to explore ways we can be more selective in the connections that are meaningful to us. In New Orleans some people talk about "planning fatigue." After Katrina, a lot of people went to a lot of community meetings, but many times they never saw any noticeable outcomes. People only have so much time and energy to give. How can we weed out the noise and get real things done around the issues we care about?

      We each have our niche interests. How do you better connect the person who wants fresh produce with the local food co-op trying to get off the ground? How do you connect the person who wants more trees with the local green organization? How do you connect the person who wants to open a coffee shop with the local process on how to start a business? Our neighbors are great sources of information for these things - if we could easily reach out to them...

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