From the L.A. Times: A collaboration between the global citizen's initiative known simply as GOOD, the Public Studio and Sheridan/Hawkes (comprised of Urban Planning grads Amber Hawkes and Georgia Sheridan), the afternoon think tank "LA 2.0: Refresh, Reinvent, Re-imagine"--was held on Saturday December 5, 2009 and called up urban practitioners to outline strategies to improve the physical environment of L.A.

It's one way to shake up the sometimes-stilted dialogue between the parties with a stake in L.A.'s future.

 

"There's an idea that planners are stuffy bureaucrats," Sheridan said, "and that designers have all these ideas but don't know how to implement them."

 

"The idea," Hawkes added, "is to bring everyone together from a variety of disciplines for an open brainstorm that ends with some concrete plans . . . the future is not silo thinking but collaborative in nature. "

 

The idea first came to Hawkes and Sheridan, two recent graduates of UCLA's urban planning graduate program who collaborate on articles and lectures, after attending GOOD December, a roster of community-building happenings that included readings and discussions on sustainability. Their idea gained further momentum after they read Obama's speech at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in June, where he asked for regional leaders to think of new approaches to inner-city problems.

Read the full story from the L.A. Times.  Learn more about LA 2.0.