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Show 195 THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH Before Jane Jacobs passed away in 2006 she inspired and encouraged the creation of a non-profit organization named The Center for the Living City (CFTLC). This non-profit organization now resides within the Department of City & Metropolitan Planning at the University of Utah, endeavoring to engage and support citizens throughout the world in their efforts to be the best possible stewards of the cities, towns and regions they care about. Among the Center's projects has been the national coordination of an annual event called Jane's Walks, which are self-organizing tours of neighborhoods that connect people with their environments and one another as they observe their community. This effort in grass-roots community engagement has not been evaluated to determine its effectiveness or lasting value for community engagement. While anecdotal evidence suggests they are indeed valu-able, the purpose of this research was to: (1) evaluate the effectiveness of the Jane's Walk program; (2): evaluate the effectiveness of the CFTLC website as a portal for community engagement, and; (3) create new and/or improved portals within the CFTLC website that respond to results of the evaluations. A survey was conducted, using the MailChimp and SurveyMonkey platforms, with the citizens and or-ganizations that organized and led Jane's Walks throughout the United States during the period 2008- 2011. The survey determined how effective the CFTLC/JanesWalkUSA website was in; (1) enrolling and engaging community involvement in the Jane's Walk program; (2) providing supportive material about the life and work of Jane Jacobs as the key informant of how we can use phenomenological observa-tions as evaluative material for improved health and vitality of our communities, and (3) what ad-ditional tools and resources might be added to the website's portals to enhance community engage-ment, providing us with enough information on how to improve the website for next event. This research has expanded the Center's web-based work in ways that bring Jacobs' work to life on the one hand, but most importantly allow citizens to apply her work in ways that are important to them. By applying the best tools we were able to find in a new and interactive website, containing the information collected in this research about Jane Jacobs' life, which includes pictures, videos, articles, biography, quotes studying and learning about Jane Jacobs will become easier and more accessible as a resource. Also, to achieve effective community engagement, we've proudly included a section in the website where people are invited to continue Jane Jacobs' observations on their own neighborhoods and share their thoughts and what they see. EVALUATING WEB-BASED PORTALS FOR COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT: JANE JACOBS AND THE CENTER FOR THE LIVING CITY Tammy Reque (Stephen Goldsmith) Department of City and Metropolitan Planning College of Architecture + Planning University of Utah Sustainability Tammy Reque Stephen Goldsmith |