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Building Capacity to Design and Engage Community in Thomasville
The city of Thomasville, Georgia (population 18,700) hosted their Citizens' Institute on Rural Design™ workshop at the Thomasville Center for the Arts and Scholars Academy on October 27-29, 2016. The goal of the workshop was to develop preliminary design concepts to inform a master plan for MacIntyre Park that would address stormwater runoff challenges in the park, while transforming it into a recreation destination that encourages active lifestyles among the city’s residents. This workshop implemented a collaborative, community led approach to revitalizing the park with a strong history and cultural heritage in the community, and brought city-wide partners together to tackle the design challenge.
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Taking Action in Limon!
The Town of Limon (population 2,000) hosted their Citizens' Institute on Rural Design™ (CIRD)workshop February 27 to March 1, 2017. In the short time since the conclusion of the workshop the community has already begun implementing short-term actions to leverage funding and build on the excitement generated at the workshop.
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Creative Placemaking Needs to Happen Now in Small Towns
Zachary Mannheimer was a featured speaker in the webinar, Creative Placemaking: Economic Development for the Next Generation on March 23, 2017, co-sponsored by the Orton Family Foundation. This is an interview with Zachary about the work he does and what motivates him.
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Housing Rural America: Funding Rural Affordable Housing and Community Revitalization
Rural residents face several barriers to affordable housing because of lower incomes and higher poverty rates in rural areas. Residents also struggle with substandard housing conditions and additional associated costs including maintenance repair and healthcare costs.
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Riding the Trail to Revitalization: Rural and Small Town Trail-Oriented Development
Trail-based development is an exciting opportunity to create engaging, healthy, and vibrant small towns and rural communities. The 31-mile-long Tammany Trace Trail in St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana and the 2.4 mile-long Radnor Multipurpose Trail in Radnor Township, Pennsylvania have both added value to the communities and become important amenities for locals and visitors alike. A major challenge facing many rural American communities is strengthening and diversifying the economy. Making a place welcoming, beautiful, and usable for the community while also creating an attractive setting for new business investment is a key step in development and ensuring a vibrant future for communities. “Trail-Oriented Development” (TrOD) is a tool which capitalizes on trails as community amenities and leverages the placemaking and development potential adjacent to trails and has been shown to be a powerful economic engine for small towns and rural communities.
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CIRD supports host communities before and after their workshops via informational conference calls and webinars that cover critical topics in community engagement, rural design, partnership development, and workshop planning.