Under the auspices of the California Institute for Smart Community, resources
from a Caltrans contract with International Center for Communication at
San Diego State University are currently being used to support the Great
Valley Center's "New Valley Connexions" project. While focused on the
economic and social benefits that flow from the development of new information
and communication technologies, the "Smart Communities" program is essentially
a community development effort aimed at helping local communities determine
how they can best take advantage of these new technologies for the sake
of own self-defined futures. The resources provided under this program
underwrite a set of programmatic activities that aim to raise the critical
awareness of these technologies and their applications by wide array of
community participants and stakeholders. They represent activities that
feed off one another for the ultimate purpose of giving a community a
solid understanding of what they can do with these technologies to improve
their capacities to deal with the economical and social challenge they
face.
The activities themselves include information and data gathering for
various types of community-based technology inventories, including running
focus groups, facilitating strategic planning and visioning efforts, and
designing and planning community meetings and conferences that follow from
the prior activities. If followed to its conclusion a smart communities
development process incorporating these activities will take a community
through four stages of development involving initiation/assessment
activities, the creation of a customized work plan for a smart communities'
oriented strategic planning and visioning process, the carrying out of that
work plan, and the formulation of an implementation strategy for putting
the outcomes of the planning and visioning process into action. Drs. Roger
Caves and Marco Walshok, Directors of Research and Program Development
respectively for the California Institute currently oversee the program and
direct the programs services that are provided by the Caltrans contract.
At the present time, the Smart Communities program is working with the
"New Valley Connexions" initiative in two discrete areas. The first is
a comprehensive inventory of the current information technology and telecommunications
programs and policies of various community organizations including local
governments, schools, and both economic and social service organizations
within an eight county area of
the San Joaquin Valley. The second area is the start of smart communities
development efforts in three distinct locations within the San Joaquin
Valley: the City of Tulare;
a southern portion of Fresno County where a group of five smaller cities
have formed a joint powers agreement for coordinated economic development
involving the communities of Sanger, Selma,
Parlier, Fowler, and Reedley; and
a group of jurisdictions within Stanislaus
County including the County itself and the cities of Modesto,
Riverbank, and Turlock.
These three sites were selected after a letter of solicitation was sent
to all jurisdictions in the eight-county area where the "New Valley" initiative
is being undertaken. These jurisdictions responded affirmatively to the
solicitation and are currently involved in the process of initiating their
smart community activities and going through the first step of assessment
and developing the outlines of their respective work plans. Other communities
that expressed interest in the becoming sites for a smart community initiative
are still being reviewed. On-going discussions about how to best approach
their particular interests and needs to make use of the resources available
under the smart communities program are taking place.
The Great Valley at 2,000 Feet (pdf - 294kb) - Essay and ariel photos by Charles Buki
May 2001
Free Lunch America (pdf - 12kb) - An Essay
by Charles Buki
Great Valley Center Conference 2001
City of Tulare
Strategic Visioning Workshop July 1999 (pdf - 573 kb)
Five Cities Joint Power Association
Vision Workshop July
1999 (pdf - 622 kb)
Strategic Planning Workshop
May 2000 (pdf - 50 kb)
County of Stanislaus
Vision Workshop September 1999 (pdf - 2 mb)
Connecting Stanislaus County April 2000 (pdf - 50 kb) |
