Justin Auciello
I design and operate civic signal systems: two-way public information systems that help communities and institutions turn distributed observation into shared understanding in everyday civic life and crisis.In 2009, I wrote that the local journalism crisis was not just a business problem, but a breakdown of civic infrastructure, and that communities themselves would need to help hold the information system together. That idea has shaped my work ever since.For 15 years, I have built and led these systems where clarity, trust, and timing matter. In 2011, I founded Jersey Shore Hurricane News, a community-powered information network that now reaches more than 300,000 people across New Jersey. During Superstorm Sandy, when 911 was overloaded and formal channels were strained, the New Jersey Office of Emergency Management used Jersey Shore Hurricane News to help communicate with people requesting storm-surge rescue and support situational awareness.Since then, it has helped communities navigate hurricanes, blizzards, wildfires, the pandemic, and long recoveries, while also serving as a trusted source of orientation in everyday civic life.That work led to seven years of reporting with NPR affiliate WHYY and recognition as a White House Champion of Change. After Hurricane Maria, I extended the same approach into humanitarian response in Puerto Rico, where I designed and field-led Información como Ayuda, a two-way information system built under collapse conditions that reached more than one million people. I later brought this work internationally through Internews, leading information ecosystem work across fragile and disaster-affected contexts on five continents.This work did not emerge from one field and then move into another. I developed it in parallel with a planning practice. As a licensed New Jersey planner, I continue advising public- and private-sector clients on land use, zoning, redevelopment, and related regulatory matters, including litigation support and expert testimony.Planning gave me a lens grounded in systems, infrastructure, implementation, stress conditions, and performance. That is why I understand information not simply as content, but as infrastructure.Today, I am turning that work into a replicable model for newsrooms, civic institutions, and other public-serving organizations: two-way information infrastructure that helps communities build trust, strengthen situational awareness, and support more responsive institutions in everyday civic life and crisis.