Heightswide vote selects 2024 Crowdsourced Conversations

A Crowdsourced Conversations 2023 event: Building Community with Renters and Landlords. [photo: Sarah Wolf]

The residents of Cleveland Heights and University Heights voted, Dec. 1 through Jan. 5, to determine four topics for the 2024 Crowdsourced Conversations forum series. From a list of more than 30 community-suggested possibilities, the top four vote-getters were: 

• Looking at Severance Town Center as a Case Study: How Can Heights Residents Become Meaningfully Involved
• Turning the Noble Neighborhood & Business District Into a Destination
• Our Public Parks
• Active Transportation Planning: Living Less Car-Centric in the Heights

Voting on the 2024 topics saw an increase of 229% over the previous year. Event organizers thank all community members who participated in this phase of the program. 

The Crowdsourced Conversations series was created in 2022 to provide “a forums series by the people, for the people.” Past topics have included Sustainability, Housing and Neighborhood Preservation, Community Safety, Civic Engagement, Our Public Schools, Traveling Around Town, Building Community with Renters and Landlords, and Planning and Development in the Heights.  

Each topic goes through two phases: a communitywide survey and a community conversation. Surveys on each topic, conducted electronically, are live for a month. The data collected is then incorporated into a survey-data report that is accessible on the FutureHeights website. The survey results are also utilized to create the small-group discussion questions. The forums, then, feature those questions, which are designed to help residents determine ways to become more actively involved in the Heights community.

Information about each of the past events in the series, including links each of their resource pages, can be accessed on the FutureHeights website at www.futureheights.org/programs/speaker-series-and-public-forums.

The 2024 series will kick off with its first survey on March 1. An announcement will be made soon regarding the order in which this year’s topics will be featured.

Program questions should be e-mailed to swolf@futureheights.org.