 The D.C. Office of Planning (OP) has awarded a $75,000 “ArtPlace Arts and Culture Temporium” grant to Partners for Livable Communities (Partners) to develop and manage temporiums in underutilized spaces in the Deanwood neighborhood, one of the District’s earliest African American communities.
Under this grant, Partners will develop and manage DeanwoodxDesign, a project that showcases the rich arts, cultural, historical, and green space assets of Deanwood and Ward 7 through a community-wide, intergenerational, and collaborative effort. This project engages artists and a diverse network of Deanwood institutions and stakeholders to cultivate community pride, showcase and create great art, and invigorate the creative economy.
Read more »
Terms:Announcements, Arts & Culture, CBC Best Practice, CBC Event, Community Building, Community Engagement, Creative Economy, Culture Builds Communities, Design, Multicultural, Neighborhood Revitalization, Placemaking, Public Art, Public-Private Partnerships, Urban, Washington, DC
 In early 2011, the Jamaica Youth Initiative—a working group of governmental, nonprofit and private institutions in a bustling neighborhood in Southern Queens—convened to discuss an important matter affecting their community: disengaged and idle youth. At the end of every school day, thousands of youth crowd the streets of downtown Jamaica, where after school activities are in demand. Partners for Livable Communities (Partners) views this demand as a rare opportunity to focus positive attention on the assets available to and within this youth population. With support from the Hearst Foundation, Partners is currently collaborating the Youth Initiative, the Greater Jamaica Development Corporation, and the Cultural Development Corporation to develop a framework of goals and recommendations that will expand arts-based after school opportunities. Ultimately, the goal is to provide programming that will enrich the lives of these youth, provide them with meaningful experiences, and assist them in obtaining employment.
Read more »
Partners for Livable Communities’ 2011 publication, Culture Connects All, was featured in the winter 2012 issue of Preserving Your Memory, a magazine supported by the Fisher Center for Alzheimer’s Research Foundation. Sam Gaines’ article, Making the Connection, outlines the publication’s key objectives, and its recommendations to arts and cultural organizations pursuing arts programs to reach out to diverse audiences. Funded by MetLife Foundation, Culture Connects All was published in 2011 to showcase cultural institutions using innovative strategies or programs to engage two of America’s fastest- growing populations: older adults and immigrants.
Read more »
Rarely does the subject of water inspire poetic phrases or passionate dedications. While we may occasionally recognize its importance, this appreciation is usually offset by the size of the water bill at the end of the month. Regardless, I’m going to ask an odd question: have you ever celebrated water? If I got a single “yes” I would be very surprised, for the simple reason that there are few formalized occasions for the public to appreciate water. This year, a multitude of civic and non-profit organizations have teamed up to give individuals the opportunity to celebrate their “love for water” in the annual Rachel Carson Sense of Wonder Contest.
 2012 marks the 40th Anniversary of the Clean Water Act. Although it was originally enacted in 1948, the Act was significantly reorganized and expanded in 1972 to regulate discharges of water pollutants and monitoring water quality standards in the United States. The Annual Rachel Carson Sense of Wonder Contest is honoring this anniversary and renaming itself the “Sense of Water Contest” for 2012.
Read more »
Terms:Aging, Aging in Place, AIP Best Practice, Arts & Culture, Community Building, Community Engagement, Diversity, Environment, Families, Intergenerational, Youth
Founders Award for Civic Leadership
James O. Gibson is honored for his leading advocacy in urban revitalization, community development, and race relations. His demonstrated commitment to social equity for more than three decades on issues ranging from civil rights to economic opportunity has provided critical progress for our country’s social fabric.
Read more »
Entrepreneurial American Leadership Award
Richard C.D. Fleming is honored for his commitment to building livable and sustainable cities as a civic entrepreneur for more than 30 years while engaged in private sector and civic initiatives to revitalize cities and metropolitan communities in Atlanta, Denver, and, for the past 17 years, St. Louis.
Read more »
Terms:2011, Awards, Board, Chamber of Commerce, Community Development, Community Engagement, Downtown Development, Economic Development, St. Louis, MO, Visioning & Planning
There is a new buzz word in the battle against urban decline and vacant retail space—“pop-ups.” Simply put, a pop-up is a short term use of a retail space. Sometimes they come in the form of holiday stores, which close down after the season, while Target and other large retailers use them to promote specific products or lines. Urban development initiatives, however, have begun to use pop-ups as a tool to reinvigorate declining shopping districts and main streets by changing perceptions of the neighborhoods they open in and demonstrating to potential investors and entrepreneurs the value of investing in these communities.
Read more »
In the recent online poll, conducted by Outdoor Magazine, Chattanooga was recently voted by readers as the top choice in the “Best Town Ever” contest of 2011.
Read more »
Undoubtedly the turn of the 21st century has been a crossroads for communities across America. Planners are becoming more uncertain of which road to take to towards livability, the latest and most thought out models of revitalization being thrown into disarray by constant redevelopments in technology and the unforseeable factors that mediate the outcome. But as the unfolding of the digital age propels us into the unknown, there is one thing that is certain—education is a key to building a more vibrant and sustainable community.
Read more »
"So, what is the point of public art? ” This question, posted online by Voice of San Diego's Kelly Bennett, came in response to the city of San Diego’s recent pull from public art funding; after its release on Twitter the post quickly turned viral. Responses to the post ranged from views of public art as superfluous and its place in the public sphere as luxury, to public art as necessary for community well-being, safety, and cohesiveness.
Many of us believe in the arts as integral to the livable community— but when measuring out our federal dollars, the arts are usually the first to go. But what if we could prove that in addition to instilling neighborhood pride and value in our public space, public art could actually serve as a deterrent for crime and violence?
Read more »
Terms:2010, Arts & Culture, Community Building, Community Development, Community Engagement, Creative Economy, Downtown Development, Economic Development, Multicultural, Neighborhood Revitalization, Placemaking, Public Art, San Diego, CA, Urban
|
Seniors in Service of Tampa Bay
Tampa Bay, Florida
For many of the older adults living in HUD assisted housing in the Tampa Bay region, routine inspections by landlords are mandatory. In short, inspections are implemented mainly to ensure that the older tenant is able to sustain an independent lifestyle, without the need for continued monitoring of their health, well-being, safety and living environment. For many of the older tenants, life in such households can often come at an aberrant cost. Realizing that this little known problem was an ever-pervasive threat to many of the older residents in Tampa Bay, Florida, the local organization, Seniors in Service of Tampa Bay (SIS), partnered with a host of regional education institutions and businesses to address how to assist older adults avoid eviction because they are unable to maintain their living environments.
Read more »
We’ve all walked past a vacant storefront or an empty lot thinking, “If only that was a….”. Now, designer and urban planner Candy Chang has created a fun way to get all that wishful thinking out in the open. Chang is distributing fill-in-the-blank stickers that read “I wish this was…” for New Orleans residents to stick on forgotten places in the city. Click here to view photos of the results.
Entrepreneurial Livable Community Award
For the community’s entrepreneurial spirit in its transformation to become a model for sustainable development and prosperity today.
Read more »
Bridge Builders Award
For the Initiative’s innovative approach to creating sustainable cities through the cross-disciplinary engagement of scholars, community leaders, and project partners.
Read more »
Partners’ recent forum with the Hirshhorn Museum, “ Building Livable Communities: Creating a Common Agenda,” served as a positive platform to re-announce a new and exciting agenda for architecture, design, and social experimentation: The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden’s Bubble Expansion and book store renovation. Attended by Congressional representatives, federal agencies, think tanks, cultural institutions, and community development leaders alike, Director of the Hirshhorn Museum Richard Koshalek discussed the museum’s upcoming plans. The "Bubble,” as it is called for the short-term, is a joint venture of Koshalek and Diller, Scofidio + Renfro, a renowned New York-based design firm, to re-invent the Museum as an intentional classroom and illustrate intersections of public and private space. Additionally, the museum book store will undergo a transition from a common commercial entity to becoming integrated as a part of museum exhibition space, through a renovation and move to the basement of the building. Perhaps this new agenda comes from the idea that we need to adapt spaces to peoples’ readily changing needs. Perhaps this comes from Richard Koshalek’s desire to make the Hirshhorn a world class modern art museum with a daring new exposition. Perhaps this comes from the need to blur public and private space by incorporating The "Bubble” as an almost space-less entity into a negative, or void, of the concrete mass building; and the book store as an experiment in museum exhibit space. Or perhaps this agenda just comes from a need to make the stolid flimsy, the serious fun, and the patron part of the exhibit.
Public libraries have transformed themselves from mere book-lenders into hubs of social and economic activity. In a recent column, journalist Neal Peirce details how libraries are adding new services ranging from lending gardening tools and hosting chess club meetings, to providing job search assistance and English instruction. Peirce quotes Partners’ president Robert McNulty regarding the transformation: "Central libraries, notes Robert McNulty of Partners for Livable Communities, can be “the great good place in the city” — as a literacy, Internet and special film center, or as a place for lectures, for local performing arts and exhibitions. Or as a coffee house. Or as an information center for visiting tourists, or a safe place for kids."
Long considered by many as the center of high society and fine art, museums have established themselves as the elite foundation for what many museum directors proudly describe as the, “cathedrals of culture.” In vibrant metropolises, urban museums have sought to find a composite group of high class patrons amongst the density and heterogeneous nature of the city. Up until recently, museum collections sought out only the most exclusive and rarest of art as a top priority in the agenda held by longtime directors. In the current era, however; a major trend has occurred amongst many of the directors who are facilitating new programs that allow each institution to provide a focused area for creating a multicultural setting in the local community.
Read more »
America’s public libraries, fast turning themselves into “one-stop shops” for digital job searches, appear to be staging one of their great historic transformations.
Read more »
Planning and public service provision have not always been open to constituent input at all stages of the development process. The past few decades, however, have brought increased public desire to provide input, and technology has further helped to facilitate this participation in more efficient and effective ways.
Read more »
Nassau County, NY with its growing immigrant population, has witnessed a 107 percent increase in Hispanics since 1990. Recognizing the local demographics of their community are rapidly changing, the Nassau County Museum of Art has created a new outreach program to both attract and to serve this growing community. Nassau County Museum of Art collaborated with Queensborough Community College’s adult literacy program for English language learners to create Culture and Literacy through Art (CALTA).
|
|
