The Citizens' Institute on Rural Design™ is a National Endowment for the Arts
leadership initiative in partnership with the Housing Assistance Council.

Webinars

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.

Learn More

Stay Connected

Sign up for CIRD email updates to stay abreast of upcoming conference calls, webinars, and rural resources as they become available.

Resources for Rural Communities

(Re)Building Downtown: A Guidebook for Revitalization

 
 
Date Published: December 2015
 
 
This resource is intended to help those who want to re-invigorate and strengthen neighborhood centers of economy, culture, and history through a smart growth approach to development.
 
This guide uses Smart Growth America’s seven-step approach to downtown redevelopment:
 
  1. Understand your community
  2. Create an attractive, walkable place
  3. Diversify economic uses
  4. Plan for equity
  5. Improve government regulations and processes
  6. Finance projects
  7. Establish on-going place management

According to Smart Growth America, the seven steps are essential for a successful downtown district. The resource provides gudinaces on each of the above steps, as well as, strategies communities can use to implement each. 

 
 

Find more resources like this:

Design issues: 

Resource Type: 

Project Scale: