Urban planners and designers offer solutions to market failures that leave holes in the urban fabric. Since the 1950s saw the rise of suburbs as wealth fled from cities, planners and designers have produced solutions that range in complexity from citizen visions to comprehensive strategies. The goal is redeveloping cities while capitalizing on changing patterns of transportation, employment, social and environmental conditions.
In the (former) mode, RE:New is a program in which American Institute of Architects’ Cleveland chapter and the Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative will assist local communities with urban design and planning problems.
Launched in January 2007, RE:New is currently seeking applicants—cities, community development corporations (CDCs), or citizens—who want to help a distressed neighborhood in need of a transformative vision. Think of it as pro-bono community visioning with the goal of jump-starting some redevelopment.
RE:new is an adaptation of work that AIA Government Affairs committee chair Angela Mazzi did while living in Phoenix, Arizona for a CDC in a struggling inner-city neighborhood.
“We engaged the community directly through a series of workshops to help them learn the unfamiliar language of architecture and planning, and communicate their ideas to us,” Mazzi writes. “It was a starting point, a template for development, that then required further work on the part of the community and the city to bring to fruition (in their case as HOPE VI grants, Community Development Block grants, and the creation of an overlay district).”
The program includes a series of mini-charettes that invite stakeholder groups—city staff, elected officials, CDCs, local business owners and residents—to assess existing conditions, share their vision and put pencil to paper on strategies for improvement.
“Rather than plan around a specific area, we decided to create a call for entries and allow any municipality in the greater Cleveland area to tell us why they should be chosen,” Mazzi explains. “Our effort is designed to truly listen to and understand the needs of the community.”
Deadlines for application are February 16. The final product —a conceptual map and preliminary guidelines that graphically and verbally express stakeholder goals—will be delivered August 15, 2007. For more information or to apply, email.
