Mark Frazier at OpenWorld reports this progress on what I would call micro-democracy:
…the Explorers Foundation of Denver announced that its Cobden-Bright Award will help fund Openworld’s development of a new “Grassroots Land Registry” web site, whose aim is to pilot a new strategy for awakening dormant capital in poor communities.
Highlights of the strategy are described in the full text of the announcement below. In brief, the approach we are gearing up to demonstrate hinges upon creating new incentives for residents of neighborhoods to work together on resolving ownership disputes and creating private land registries.
The project will reward residents in pilot project areas who agree to a “good neighbor” covenant for arbitrating disputes, and who upload photos and brief video affirmations of uncontested property claims to an Openworld web site. Households in areas that take such actions will gain access to microscholarships for eLearning and microvouchers for health care resources.
Go, Mark! Go!