Citizens
Remember
and Rebuild

Soon after the 9/11 attacks, stark differences over the future of the site began to divide survivors, business leaders and residents. Civic leaders and members of the general public feared that business and political interests would prevail unless a broad public consensus emerged and shaped the redevelopment effort. To address this need, the Civic Alliance to Rebuild Downtown New York asked AmericaSpeaks to develop a project that would transcend these differences and provide decision makers with areas of agreement about the redevelopment of the site.

In addition convening 21st Century Town Meetings for 5,100 people, AmericaSpeaks convened 800 New Yorkers in a two-week online dialogue about the rebuilding process. The online dialogue used Web Lab’s Small Group Dialogue platform to enable diverse groups of New Yorkers to deliberate in small groups and then vote on polling questions about their preferences for the rebuilding process. Facilitators worked with the small groups to find common ground positions and keep the discussion going. Periodically, online participants met online with decision makers and leaders to talk about rebuilding issues. A theme team reviewed ideas being generated in the small groups and fed those themes back to the whole group and used themes to develop polling questions.

Listening to the City demonstrated that it is possible for thousands of citizens to come together, deliberate about difficult issues and reach consensus within a charged and complex decision-making process. The process was praised by many decision makers, the media, and architecture and planning leaders as a model for the future. Following Listening to the City, decision makers announced that a new set of plans would be developed for Ground Zero, largely based on the criteria that emerged from the public discussion.