The second pillar is our belief in the concept of open and dynamic public partnerships that at once provide incentives and a solid base of citizen support for social activism and experimentation, while at the same time inviting widest cooperation and leadership from the business community and the public sector. After all, these guys work for us. So let us help them understand what exactly it is that they need to do in the public interest to make our cites healthier, safer, more efficient and more sustainable. If they want to stay in office they will be glad to work with us.

Within this action framework we offer here a number of instruments for expanding both overall activity and public/private partnerships that go beyond mere rhetoric and target specific kinds of issues and alternative approaches. One of these is the concept of an Internet-mediated public petition for specific action on the part of explicitly targeted public officials. We refer to this as our "petition machine.

How it works

Here you can get some help from the following:

• The Petition Guidelines
• The Car Free Day Petition home page
• A good Sample Petition being sent to the Mayor of Bellingham, Washington, USA

Once you have the basic petition materials organized, the next step will be to begin your outreach effort to get maximum public support. In most cases, those directly concerned will have their own networks and ideas for this. But there also might be some help if you run a quick search here of:

• Database Partner Search
• Guestbook Partner Search

These may offer a few ideas.