What's New at CNU 31

They're gonna be highlighting either 0 parking cars or car shares within the buildings or their proximity to Greenway. So for bike infrastructure that there's not necessarily one car to one bedroom in there. And then also, Margaret hinted on on our shared experiences in the morning. In the past there's always been a good running collective that has been in the Congress, and we're looking to really enhance that and offer opportunities for Yoga within the built, you know, in between the buildings and uptowns. And then with our friends from Art Walk, cl T. Will have a series of mural tours that will be guided tours through the city, and we'll have a host. They'll kind of lead you through and talk about our very robust infrastructure of murals and artists that are booming within the city. But it's doesn't stop there, you know, with your free time and what Matt ended on with the hopefully a little bit longer lunch break. You're really in a walking, Mecca to be in second war with the hotel. And so within the 4 words, in our third ward we have our stadiums and our art museums that are very close to the hotel with the Bechler uptown branch, and then also the Harvey Bgant Center for African American Arts and culture and our first second award. We have our government center and the parks that surround it, and the places for people along with our market, and a hope hope 6 project, and then our fourth word. We have our closest historical district, the fourth word neighborhood, that is, one of 8 historical districts. Very close to our urban core, and that's another kind of way that you know, thinking back to the West End on how. How can we protect these historic neighborhoods, and some some neighborhoods have been aligned and developed or created the energy enough to get the historic district notation but don't forget to bring your walking shoes because there's not just the stuff in up down with your registration for the Congress, and through the app there'll be a city transit. Pass that you can enjoy going whether it's through the buses. Our streetcar, and then also our light rail, and these really open up the city and the neighborhoods around it, so to the south end that you can see with the development behind me we've got our rail trail and stretching that density from light excuse me from uptown that talked about to the north we have optimist, part nota, and eventually you and CC. Which was the site of one of the legacy projects. And then to the east. We have Elizabeth and our central Piedmont Community College, with their brand new state of the art Parce center for student life and this is a traditional 2 year community college that's really created a robust infrastructure for what the the county needs, as far as the workforce, but also what they are trying to build in those 2 years that people are on campus and their cultural nodes, and how to create that sense of place, and then to the West. In here. We like. I mentioned before, on one of our tours, you know the equitable Tod and preserving of neighborhoods there, and so important, luckily for everybody that's coming to the Congress or Charlotte knights are in town so every night 5 blocks away There'll be our Urban Stadium with the city as a backdrop. That that is quite the quite the time, no matter how the teams playing I also encourage people to check out our breweries, and not from an alcohol function. But just this really creating a sense of third party is in this city, and there's tons of brewers that haven't aren't just going the alcohol route. There's a lot of choices that are not alcoholic or ciders, or what have you with adult beverages? But these really are getting back to the tradition of third places. That's obviously beautiful to be outside in times like this, but also can be, you know, a lot of energy for the sharing of stories with friends and making new ones. I really encourage everybody to follow. Charlotte's got a lot.com axio, Charlotte, or Charlotte 5. As these are really a great way to show everything else that's going on in the city, and they all do a great job kind of covering. You know what other energy I might not be. Have right now, and I really feel you know at the end of the day Charlotte has something for everybody, especially people who like deep fried vegetables, because we're in the South, and we really deep fry a lot of vegetables. Down. Sounds amazing. Chris and I would mention that we've had bike tours in previous concerts. Yes. But these are power. Assist pedal bikes which you can go far on, and they're fun. So. And you also have a bike share. Right? Yup! That does have these powers assist bikes, and the bike shares are all around. So people can really see good parts of the city by bike, even if you're not like, really in great shape for biking. Yes. Well, that's what this looks flat, but there's probably 75 feet between here and the city. So you go down and up a lot, and it is very sneaky. Well, I'm sure it is, and we look forward to that. I want to remind people that that we, you know, put put questions in the function of Zoom. We want to hear your thoughts. We wanna hear your questions about this. It's an ongoing dialogue. I wanted to just sort of ask a little bit if you've got the the big stage. You've got the Congress. You've got the Interactive Congress. You got the workshop, Congress? Is it fair to say that you're looking to reduce the big stage aspect of the Congress and increase those other areas? We're not. Not if you know, given historically how things have been organized there have been the plenaries. There's typically been 3, you know, we can't. We're, you know, that's sort of a big stage thing, and the main stage is is like, but not like that. It's like that, in a way, but we still want that to be limited, and we want those those to not just be one voice. And we want them to be connected to the theme and and sort of a means of starting out the day with content that we feel everyone should hear that then can filter into their exp through sessions the rest of the day. Now, we're putting them all at the same time of day. So it's, you know, really, really, a sets. It sets the sort of days agenda and focus. And you know we'll get there to see how that works through. Through reviewing sessions which which we've all had lots of fun figuring out different ways to be more effective at doing that. But and what we're saying in terms of of trying to limit and shift in other ways is to have fewer, fewer sessions that you might find. And this is what a lot of people do. You might find that somebody submits a session that they also had submitted to Apa and Aa. And you know all these different things which are all the same format, and like this's just not who we are right. And so what we want to do is have more opportunity for for interaction, for for sharing of of ideas, of multiple perspectives. And we do focus on on our review of proposals, on, on proposals that focus on ideas more so than like, Oh, here's the here's the way that we did this on this project, right, which is still valuable. But in any case that allows us to try to shift to, you know the short format pieces which are getting a lot of ideas out there. But then also making room once again for for meetings of groups that are actually working on things within the organization, or groups that are that are allied with the organization or in your group that wants to come up so the historically, we've had the initiative sessions over over lunches like the rainwater and context, and the educational focus group and others like that. And we're trying to put those into the main mix of things, you know, rather than necessarily a lunch session, that it's gonna also be similar for other organizations. You know, the Guild will still do a whole bunch of programming on their own in. Norman yield. But you know, like there's other groups, National Time Builders Association, who we always want to provide space for, and they can have presentations and their own sort of meeting focus, place initiative has their focus on meeting. There's the black caucus, the Christian caucus, you know all sorts of different organizations within the sort of seeing you umbrella that we' to provide space for them to work together, to meet to move forward their agenda, and to provide more space for for other groups to emerge right? Because we we know that as this interesting, we see ourselves as bottom up organization, it's not that that you know, seeing you, the organization is is setting the setting, the agenda and getting all the work done right. It's more so, being so supportive and convening, convening people who are sort of on their own coming together and working towards solving these problems. And we find ways to connect those and amplify that and provide educational background for it, provide assistance where we can, and try to promote those ideas. So it's really you know, in a way, we're sort of saying like, let's write size, you know, even the timing that we have for sessions, so that we can have more interaction. But then we can also find ways to allow for more of this interaction amongst members who are going to then carry, carry forward the work throughout the year. Margaret, you used an interesting phrase in an article that you wrote about this a few months ago, and you said, putting the Congress back in the Congress, do you have any thoughts on? What does that mean? And how are you thinking about doing that? Sure. So I think you know, that's a phrase that we've been batting around for a couple of years now, because as I think, I said at the top of this, you know, there's been kind of an ongoing request from members over the last maybe 10 or so years to kind of return the event to its roots. So, as Matt said, a lot of conferences out there are very similar, and lot of, you know, repeated presentations. And what makes the Congress a Congress and not a conference, is that you know our attendees have always it's consistent of a really, you know, passionate multi disciplinary group of people who come together. To, you know. Move forward! The practice of Northernism and their own. You know private practices. So there's that's a 3 year plan, really, in the whole kind of vein of the Congress. Rethink to get us back to a place where folks were gathering together to, you know. Hi, Denise issues and really develop creative solutions to those issues and move the practice forward. And so you know, if you've been to some of the earlier congresses where people are really kind of pushing each other to come up with solutions to, you know, really complicated problems to, you know, develop to dream big to think, you know, beyond the kind of current toolbox of solutions for some of these, you know, prevalent issues that cities and towns are facing. That's kind of what makes a Congress Congress. And so, while it seems a little silly to say, like, we're going to put the Congress back in the Congress. The point here is to say, we want to. Re, you know, uncover rediscover the roots of of the event itself, which would not, you know, the biggest, baddest place speaking conference in the country, but was really an opportunity for passionate people to get together to solve a problem so like work in a problem space and move the practice into, you know, forward! So the you know, the Congress focused this year is one major way. We're doing that. There's an evolving as Matt hinted, at process for identifying sessions, curating sessions, putting forward sessions and content that we're hoping to will help, you know, take a chunk out of that a lot of the like, shared, working together, learning together, experiencing together. Those are all the things that we think makes the Congress distinguished and different than every other place, making conference in the world. So that's kind of what that hints up. Rob can. I'll just take 2 of the questions that I that I see there, because I think one is very tied to where Margaret just left off, and that's a question that asked the publish schedule as many placeholders. That don't specify the topics. Is that information provided elsewhere is still being worked out. Margaret and I are meeting right after this to continue to work on that we're it's sort of the last couple of years we've been trying to find our footing on this and and are behind. We've changed leadership at the organization. That's sort of at a time that's pushed us off in terms of being able to deliver the the the session selections, topics, timeline in the time that we would like to the timeframe so we're we're certainly working on getting that done earlier for next year, and for the following years. So I believe that should be together at least fairly soon. Margaret. I don't know. If. Do you have a timeline in mind with that? Yeah, so I also just put a link in the chat to one of the pages on our website. Which describes a little bit the agenda, but there are more significant descriptions, kind of at the bottom of that page about, you know the type of coding sessions, the type of housing sessions, the topics we're talking about in transportation and climate and you know equity, which I think will give you a little bit of better idea of what source of sessions you'll get. But yeah, my goal is that Matt and I will have most of that hammered out this week. And we'll update the website as soon as we can. We have more final stuff, you know. Offline. It's just we haven't necessarily updated that public facing. Agenda. But we will do that this week is our kind of drop deadline for that. Great, and the other Rob. I just wanted to grab Paddy Steinsteiners comment. He was asking about about open open innovation and the the small stage opportunities. You know a mic in your hand for 7 min with limited hurdles, and really our goal, Patty, that so this open innovation was was an idea that started a decade ago at least, that came off of some shoulder. some an external event that was held beforehand, and then sort of brought this thought like well, getting ideas in short, format presentations. A lot of them together is a really great way to have a low barrier of entry to either new ideas or voices that are new to to the senior group overall, or things that may be a little bit obscure, that we would say I don't know if that gets the whole session, but you know you provide an opportunity for more participation. And so that was that was worked on for a decade, and Patty took a really strong lead with that for a long time, and organizing those. And you know a call for proposals on that, and putting those sessions together, and we've been trying and welcome to critique Patty. We've been trying over the last, you know the last Congress and this Congress to to try to put that upfront as opposed to sort of later to to allow an open and open net of of any body to to. A proposed short sessions in the main, in the main call for proposals. So I mean to to us. That's sort of like. Making it part of of the Congress solidly so. Our goal is to really make it a core piece of Congress programming. What was open innovation? Should we still call it open innovation? I don't know I'm open, but but that is, that has been our goal, and you know, I think, given given the time that Patty has given to that over the years that I would certainly welcome some some help in figuring out how best to to moderate to to to identify additional moderators to help orient people to that process. But our goal at overall is to ensure that we have more low barrier to entry short presentations, so that we can get a greater sharing of ideas and hear from new voices that we that we don't already know. There was an interesting point was raised in the chat, and, the quote, I would like to hear ideas about facilitating a civil dialogue at Charrett's, and public work. Sessions and meetings we have experienced a shift towards aggressive, uncivil interactions, and I would just say that if the legacy threats which are really part of the Congress that happen for the Congress there was I think some good examples of of how to facilitate that sort, of a dialogue, but you know, at the Congress I'd like to hear whether you think there's going to be a lot of discussion about that. A chance to learn about how to facilitate the civil dialogues in this day. Yeah, there's there's well, I mean, perfectly timed. There is a a session that's being organized by Bill Leonard's, who ran the National Shred Institute for for quite a long time, and a good friend he's going to to lead a session on that topic specifically and stri strategies for for addressing the divided dialogue that we're seeing to be more prevalent. And there are also a few other sessions that are focus indirectly at some aspects of that issue. Because it is very prevalent. So there's both. Certainly don't Miss Bills session on that, but also I think we may find that topic come up over and over again. As we're dealing with it regularly. Okay. Patrick brings up the you know, the idea of testing claims and analyzing goals, he said. What claims could be tested, what goals could be analyzed with regards to the corridor? And how do these papers in the call for academic papers fit into the structure of the Congress? I have, Margaret, you might be able to talk about cause I'm not as on the papers, but I I can talk about one thing with the metrics and and claims and corridors. Go ahead! Yeah, okay, well, just that just happened to receive a a message from doctor who had presented last year on on her studies. I think the Ucf. Related to driver behavior and the design of virtual ways where they're, you know, mounting cameras and cars and sort of tracking people's eye movements and interactions, and how they how they respond to different stimuli of the road, so that I don't think that she submitted a paper, because that research is ongoing. But that is an example. The work that they're doing would be a perfect example of that. Now we could also, which is, which is proving out our claims. You know what they're what they're proving so far are things that we've empirically understood that we, we need friction. We need the tightness of space. We need people to sort of see action on the street, to have visual friction, to slow down the cars and they're proving that that to be the case through through academic research. You know that? That's when one aspect of quarters. But we could also look into research on on the impact of redevelopment, are on corridors to the sort of areas surrounding that. I think there's a lot of ways that we have in terms of. You know, engineering quality of life, economics, housing, and affordability and and sort of cut transportation, efficiency. And even natural corridor systems. There's a lot that you could sort of fit into to the theme. But in any case I don't know as much about the the process, and so forth, so I'll let Margaret answer the rest. Yeah those sessions, those papers are being curated in a separate process. By Alan Dunham Jones, and Emily Tallon, and so they will be, I think, all of the papers that are being selected will be presented in a single session that we've got space for. So if you wanna send me an email, I'm happy to get more details about the timeline on that. I just like to bring Chris in for a a minute for briefing to. If you tell me what the the most interesting from nervous point of view places in our neighborhoods in Charlotte are that the attendees should go to. Yeah, definitely, well, I'm gonna cheat. I'm just gonna say the rail trail. So that encompasses these pretty much half of uptown, and then goes down into South End, and especially now you know that there's such a boom I don't know if you can see all the cranes behind me on my left, there's such a boom I don't know if you could see all the cranes behind me on my left. It there is just a ton of a density kind of coming up around our Tods and it's very exciting, and at the same time there's this, there's just a ton of people. I mean that the rail trail originally was the Beeper bicycles, and have you know that, be part of it, along with walking and jogging. But there's so many people sometimes, especially in and around the work hours, that you can't even get a bike on it. You're just being rude at that point. So it's just. It's great to think that they're places in a Southern city, and something like Charlotte that this isn't, for all things go everywhere. There's really a lot of opportunities that you'll see that people are going up. But it's it's it's been awesome. I mean I'm partial to Nota. It was settled as an artist community just to the north. It's a couple of stops on the light rail. I live right outside of it, so I guess there's a selfish plug there. But there's just a people that will talk to you. Say, Hello! Talk about the weather! Just that kind of stuff. It's it's a really inviting Southern city, in my opinion, from that aspect. Hopefully, the web, if you're in t-shirt. Yup! Hopefully. The weather is beautiful. At the end of May, early June, as it is now in Charlotte, Monica, asks about how well we respond to work from home is, how will we respond to work from home as regards to density, equations across the scale in rural and urban cities. I don't know what we're from. Home is a huge trend these days. How much are their sessions at the Congress that will be focusing on work from home in the urban implications? I know that some of the coding sessions touched on the coding implications of live work, situations. I'm not sure the extent to which the kind of corridor housing you know, density conversations we'll touch specifically and work from home. I don't know if Matt isn't gonna add. Oh, I mean I only have like 2 min. Well, but yeah, I don't know how much it's gonna be covered, but I think that is certainly like a subject of I'm certain key at the moment, and there's a lot to discuss on on the matter. Like I I was just, you know, just as an aside. I was just yesterday reviewing some analysis that was done by Sharon Woods for a project that we're working on in Michigan and you know a beautiful project. And she looked at the trends of from work from home before and after Covid for this area and before before, Covid was like 5%. And now at the current point that we are now it's at about 12%. So there was an increase. But it's not a super significant increase, and that may vary from from place to place, so I certainly welcome the discussion. I don't think anybody proposed anything specifically on that. But if if you find me in the hallway, I can connect you to some people that that I know are doing some analysis about it. You know I think a lot of what we do best is to is well, you know first to know that you can kind of walk you should feel free. To walk up to pretty much anybody, and say, Oh, hey! I'm interested in this topic. I think that you may also be interested in this topic. And it's really that making of connections that set things up sets things apart. So, you know, feel free to to pull me aside, or whomever, and you know we'll do the best to to make connections and see how that conversation can grow into something more. I was. Gonna say, I'll have to get Matt a special colored T-shirt, and you you can locate Chris and I with with our cool guy sunglasses but I'll have to get Matt like a yellow t-shirt and maybe an umbrella, or something. I don't know about an umbrella, but I I do have a mustard yellow backpack. I could just wear that. And I'll just quickly we got a question from Joe about the seeing you connect app, and that's I just wanna make sure we were able to answer that one. We will be updating the Cnu connect app to add seeing you 31 as an event on it, it won't impact any of the material connections. Messages, or anything from Cnu 30, because it'll be a separate event on the app. But just keep keep an eye out for updates on our website and our communications about that. Okay, well, we are just past the the hour point. I know Matt has to go, so I want to just thank everybody. I want to thank the panelists. Chris, Matt, Margaret, for being here, and I want to thank everybody who was attending and asking pertinent questions about seeing you 31. I really look forward to going back to Charlotte in a little under 2 months, and maybe you can show me some breweries there, Chris, or something. Oh, yeah, very much so. You know there's so much activity on the ground in downtown and in uptown when I was out there last, and it's really really picked up. I've certainly spent time in the city over the years. It's very, very lively and exciting. So I definitely look forward to to being there with everybody. Okay, we'll see you all, Charlotte, and see you later. And on the park bench. I'm sure. Thanks, Rob. Thanks, Rab!