Pittsburgh Homes Daily

Last night, the Urban Design Associates and the Pittsburgh Penguins held a meeting to get input from residents on the development of the new Penguins arena. Architect Don Carter, President of Urban Design Associates, indicated to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the doors are wide open for public participation.

Sounded nice.

Until I started thinking about my post yesterday on innovation. Where is the digg-like site that utilizes social voting to allow the best public ideas to rise to the top? Where is the blog that has an interactive discussion with residents about what is and is not possible, and has a candid discussion of what ideas they are considering next. Where is the Post-Gazette online poll asking its readers what they care about?

“More than 230 people ” participated in the process last night. So, statistically, 1 person’s voice represented about 1,000 city residents and 10,000 residents in the metropolitan area.

When I read “We’ve opened the door as wide as we can” I hear - We’ve opened the door as wide as we know how.