Building trust through
digital engagement

Residents have expressed that they have been so grateful to have new and accessible tools to communicate their thoughts and participate in this process. Participation has long been a function of privilege, and the way we were doing engagement before doesn’t feel right anymore…This was such a unique opportunity to make the process more honest, open, and transparent.

The beauty of coUrbanize is that it gives voice to those who feel like they’re voiceless.

In communities where we haven’t used coUrbanize and faced opposition, we’ve seen entitlements drag on for an additional 12 to 18 months. The total added cost is in the tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars with additional permitting, legal, and overhead expenses plus costs associated with design changes.

We were able to use the data and feedback to show that we had addressed concerns, and that some of the concerns the City Council might point to really didn’t exist. We ended up getting unanimous City Council support for the project.

The fact that coUrbanize is plug-and-play provides big cost savings. We didn’t have to hire a web developer and design a website. Compared to setting something up from scratch there is a cost savings in dollars as well as time. We set up coUrbanize in a matter of weeks – it was extremely fast and very reactive.

Without coUrbanize it would have been much more difficult for us to state our case to City Councilmembers. We were able to produce hard evidence and analytics showing that 80% of project comments were positive…Those kinds of analytics are difficult to get with only in-person outreach.