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Overview
Introduction to CIRD's mission, programs, and history
Impact
CIRD by the numbers, plus geography and case studies
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CIRD team, partners, and collaborators
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Press releases, announcements, and CIRD news
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Design Learning Cohort
Peer learning design training program for rural leaders
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Hands-on workshops to address rural design challenges
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Narratives exploring CIRD's impact and value of rural design
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Inspiring, useful ideas from rural design experts
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Toolkits, reports, and best practices for rural design projects
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Community Resources

Explore toolkits, reports, best practices and trends for rural community design.
Storytelling
Community engagement
Creative placemaking
Architecture
Public space
COVID-19 and disaster recovery
Youth and aging
Skills and education
Local identity and character
Income inequality
Governance and regulation
Economic development
Diversity
Declining population
Streetscape and transportation
Sustainability
Heritage and preservation
Growth management
Downtown revitalization
Arts and cultural development
Community Resources

Glossary of Planning and Design Terms

Source:The Citizens' Institute on Rural Design™ The Citizens' Institute on Rural Design™ has assembled a list of planning and design terms to help community members understand the terms used in design charrettes by architects, planners, and designers. This glossary is helpful not only for participants at a workshop or charrette, but also forunderstanding the vocabulary used by the design field.
Architecture
Creative placemaking
Public space
Growth management
Skills and education
Community Resources

From the Experts: Strategies to Save Rural America

Source: NET - Nebraska’s PBS and NPR stations Author: New News and Harvest Public Media This panel discussion surveys the key challenges and opportunities facing rural America. Guests present their views about a range of topics, such as the need to diversify rural economies beyond agriculture, how to cope with a declining population, useful strategies for improving local community leadership, and the importance of collaborating with neighboring communities.
Declining population
Economic development
Governance and regulation
Income inequality
Youth and aging
Community Resources

New Ways to ‘Do’ Politics: Tools for Public Engagement Beyond the Town Square.

Source: National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation Author: Sandy Heierbacher. This guidebook offers easy to understand explanations of key concepts, descriptions of resources and tools, as well as the helpful NCDD Engagement Streams Framework which helps people decide which types of approaches are the best fit for their circumstances.
Declining population
Growth management
Governance and regulation
Public space
Community Resources

Building Momentum for Your Long-Term Vision

Source: CIRD’s Building Momentum for Your Long-Term Vision Webinar. Authors: Emily Schmidt and Jun-Li Wang. This resource guide contains resources and examples of successful community design projects and exemplary storytelling.
Community engagement
Creative placemaking
Economic development
Public space
Storytelling
Community Resources

A Transportation Planning Reference: Taking a Corridor-based Approach

Source: Project for Public Spaces Author: Jay Walljasper Summary: Transportation benefits our sense of place, and our sense of place benefits transportation. A place-based approach to transportation planning redefines how both transportation and land use planners view their goals.
Streetscape and transportation
Community Resources

Models and Practices for Meaningful Community Engagement Resource Guide

Source: CIRD’s Models and Practices for Meaningful Community Engagement Webinar. Author: Jaime Horter. This crowdsourced resource guide for creative community engagement was created by participants of a CIRD webinar, Models and Practices for Meaningful Community Engagement, led by rural artist Jamie Horter.
Community engagement
Creative placemaking
Community Resources

Rural Prosperity Through the Arts and Creative Sector

Source: National Governor's Association and National Endowment for the Arts. By leveraging the creative industries, states can deploy proven strategies that help all rural communities to thrive. This action guide is part of a collaborative project between NGA, the National Endowment for the Arts and National Assembly of State Arts Agencies.
Creative placemaking
Arts and cultural development
Economic development
Growth management
Heritage and preservation
Community Resources

Community Engagement from Detroit to Salmon ID

Source: Detroit Collaborative Design Center. Author: Ceara O’Leary. Ceara O’Leary draws on the work of the Detroit Collaborative Design Center to demonstrate how the residents of Salmon, Idaho, could undertake a successful process for community engagement (presented at the Salmon, ID rural design workshop).
Community engagement
Creative placemaking
Community Resources

Using Everyday Objects to Translate Dreams and Ideas

Source: Place It! Interactive Planning. Author: James Rojas. James Rojas describes his unique Place It! Process of engaging people of all ages, cultures, backgrounds, and ethnicities in visualizing future community places based on childhood memories, and how everyday objects can be used to translate dreams and ideas into reality (presented at the Las Vegas, NM rural design workshop).
Community engagement
Creative placemaking
Community Resources

Public Engagement

Source: Heartland Center for Leadership Development. Author: Milan Wall. Milan Wall discusses strategies for successful public engagement processes centered around effective group discussions, participant input, and best practices for maintaining momentum (presented at the Lincoln, NE rural design workshop).
Community engagement
Creative placemaking
Community Resources

Essential Smart Growth Fixes for Rural Planning, Zoning, and Development Codes

This document produced by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2012 provides policy options that can help rural communities strengthen their economies while preserving rural character. These policies can help rural communities ensure that their development is fiscally sound, environmentally responsible, and socially equitable.
Declining population
Downtown revitalization
Economic development
Governance and regulation
Growth management
Community Resources

Role of Architecture in Fighting COVID-19

Source: MASS Design Group. The design of our spaces has the power to hurt us or to keep us safe. At MASS Design Group, we have spent the last ten years building new spaces and retrofitting existing buildings to promote infection control, and to support our partners in providing the best patient care possible.
COVID-19 and disaster recovery
Architecture
Downtown revitalization
Public space
Income inequality
Community Resources

Tools for Community-Led Recovery

Source: Urban Design Forum and Van Allen Institute. This site has numerous resources and ideas to help neighborhoods rebound after the COVID-19 crisis, directly from urban design experts.
COVID-19 and disaster recovery
Downtown revitalization
Economic development
Community Resources

Understanding and Reaching Your Community: Doing a Community Network Analysis

Source: Orton Family Foundation. This guide helps to identify the people and organizations which can either support or be influenced by community projects. It provides a framework for doing a stakeholder analysis, describing how to tap into different demographics in your community, and for making use of the connections among different community groups.
Diversity
Income inequality
Local identity and character
Youth and aging
Governance and regulation
Community Resources

A DIY Guide to Placemaking in Your Neighborhood

Source: Placemaking Chicago Authors: Project for Public Spaces, Metropolitan Planning Council Chicago Summary: This guidebook is written for anyone who has a stake in the improvement of neighborhoods.
Creative placemaking
Arts and cultural development
Local identity and character
Community Resources

Rural Design: Establishing the Research Foundation for a New Design Discipline

Source: Center for Rural Design University of Minnesota Author: Dewey Thorbeck Summary: Rural areas in North America are undergoing profound demographic, economic, cultural, and environmental change, creating considerable challenges and stress for their residents and on the ecosystems upon which they depend for their livelihoods and quality of life.
Architecture
Declining population
Economic development
Growth management
Local identity and character
Community Resources

Information is Power: a Communications Planning Workbook

Source: Resource Media Author: Sian Wu The Communications Workbook is a simple, step-by-step approach for creating, executing and evaluating a communications strategy. It offers tools and ideas for different approaches, with helpful prompts, worksheets and a substantial glossary of tactics.
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Community Resources

Thinking Long Term: A Sustainability Planning Workbook

Source: Rural Assistance Center Author: Georgia State University, Georgia Health Policy Center. It’s important for communities to situate their projects within a bigger picture when planning around grants and funding. Some foresight and strategy can help to leverage additional funds, and secure long-term viability, rather than recurring dependency.
Sustainability
Governance and regulation
Community Resources

Making Rural America Walkable

Source: WalkBoston Authors: Robert Sloane and Wendy Landman Outside of urbanized town centers, many parts of Massachusetts suffer from poor infrastructure for walking, with few sidewalks, a dangerous lack of crosswalks and unattractive streetscaping. Yet, as walking is increasingly recognized as an essential part of healthy living, many residents of rural and low-density suburban areas are seeking opportunities to improve the walking environments in their communities.
Streetscape and transportation
Sustainability
Public space
Community Resources

Revitalizing Small Towns: Resolving Downtown Challenges

Source: The Economic Development Journal Author: N. David Milder, (DANTH, Inc.) and Andrew Dane (Short Elliott Hendrickson Inc.) Studies and best practice about the revitalization of downtowns tends to focus on larger cities. However, there are many challenges which are unique to small towns, and often aren’t recognized or addressed.
Declining population
Economic development
Local identity and character
Community Resources

Picking Your Partners For Community Planning

Source: The Orton Family Foundation This quick guide takes users through strategies for developing viable partnerships for community planning projects. A strong, healthy partnership between organizations or individuals can bolster resources, talent and energy, although a weak or dysfunctional partnership can just as easily be detrimental to a project.
Governance and regulation
Skills and education
Declining population
Income inequality
Youth and aging
Community Resources

Using Natural Resources and Amenities to Build Sustainable Rural Communities

Source: ICMA Author: Anna Read This report looks at how natural resource strengths and working landscapes can often provide the basis for rural economic activities. A case study of Killington, Vermont highlights the economic development strategies related to working landscapes and recreation, as the town created cultural and recreational amenities that transformed it into a year-round tourist destination, profiting their economy greatly.
Sustainability
Public space
Community Resources

Resource Guide for Rural Planning and Design

Full Resource: The Resource Guide for Rural Planning and Design Source: The Citizens' Institute on Rural Design™ The Citizens' Institute on Rural Design™'s Resource Guide for Rural Planning and Design is a list of organizations in the fields of planning, housing, land use and natural resources, design, historic preservation, rural development, and funding that provide resources to communities for projects addressing development, design, and planning.
Creative placemaking
Architecture
Growth management
Local identity and character
Public space
Community Resources

Building a Creative Rural Economy

This resource article focuses on how creativity and culture can drive economic development in rural communities. The article focuses on Prince Edward County, a rural municipality of 25,000 located south of Belleville, approximately midway between Toronto and Montreal, Canada.
Arts and cultural development
Creative placemaking
Economic development
Growth management
Community Resources

Responsible Tourism: How to Preserve the Goose that Lays the Golden Egg

Tourism provides communities with numerous benefits including, new jobs, an expanded tax base, improved facilities, and a new market for local products. However, tourism can also exacerbate crowding, traffic congestion, and haphazard development if not planned for correctly. This resource article provides tactics needed to maximize the benefits of tourism, while minimizing the burdens.
Heritage and preservation
Downtown revitalization
Economic development
Streetscape and transportation
Arts and cultural development
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The Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design (CIRD) is a leadership initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the Housing Assistance Council.

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