Pandemic shutdown has opened up civic participation

WHEN IT COMES to civic engagement, a funny thing happened on the way to the pandemic shutdown. 

While all sorts of aspects of daily life ground to a halt as we hunkered down, as much as possible, at home, the in-person isolation seems to have produced a blossoming of civic connectedness. 

With hearings and other government proceedings suddenly all streamed online, City Hall itself may have been shut down, but following the workings of municipal government — and even offering public testimony on an issue — was suddenly open to anyone with an internet connection and an urge to be heard. 

Boston city councilors Lydia Edwards and Liz Breadon say we need to seize this civic silver lining of the pandemic by making permanent the ability of residents to take part remotely in hearings. They’re introducing an ordinance at today’s City Council meeting that would require just that. 

Meaghann Lucy, a Boston University graduate student in sociology, worked last year as a summer fellow in the Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics and was part of a team charged with examining Boston’s switch to remote civic engagement. 

Writing on the website of BU’s Initiative of Cities, a program launched under former Boston mayor Tom Menino, Lucy said there were fears that the transition would exacerbate the “digital divide” and prove frustrating for residents. 

“Instead,” she wrote, “as departments transitioned previously in-person public conversations, rallies, and meetings online, they saw more attendees—sometimes 3 times or 4 times as many as before COVID-19—and what appeared to be a more diverse group participating.”

The aim is not to replace in-person participation in a post-pandemic world, but to allow for what Lucy describes as a “blended” civic future that incorporates remote and in-person participation. 

Notwithstanding the observation of more robust and diverse participation in Boston civic life during this early experience with the shift, more widespread use of livestreaming technology in public proceedings will undoubtedly put a spotlight on the digital divide.