Tag: Placemaking

The Fight to Save a Small-Town Bridge: Reflections on Infrastructure, Placemaking, and Community Engagement

July 9, 2021 / odrozd

By Ruby Brinkerhoff

Sometimes an old bridge is just that. An old bridge. Nothing much to talk about, often beneath our feet and our wheels, but rarely the object of direct attention, let alone debate. Tucked away in the Delaware Valley, nestled between two sides of the Delaware River, the Milanville Bridge has connected New York and Pennsylvania since its original construction date in 1902. As people take up aging infrastructure as a national conversation with increasing urgency, the conversation gains a great amount of relevance in local contexts. Examples of aging infrastructure, no matter how seemingly small, demonstrate the impact infrastructure decisions have on communities and how a small-town bridge can become symbolic in ways far superseding simply getting from point A to point B.

Milanville, Pennsylvania, part of Damascus Township, is a small village with about 600 residents. There is one general store with an attached post office and narrow, winding roads that cut into the hills and along the river, twisting along the embankments and through the countryside as if they were streams themselves carrying us back and forth from our destinations. The Milanville Bridge, also known as the Skinner’s Falls Bridge, is one of several bridges spaced out along the river, serving the local population and the considerable number of tourists that flock to the area every year to escape New York City, enjoy the countryside, and use the river recreationally. One of the most popular swimming spots, known as Skinner’s Falls, lies just downstream from the Skinner’s Falls bridge. This destination becomes relevant to the conversation in two ways: what happens upstream affects what happens downstream, and as with all bridges, we want to know where they lead to.

*Photo Credit: Veronica Daub, The River Reporter, 2021*

The Milanville Bridge, beyond its own historical significance, connects people to the economic vitality of Milanville. The Upper Delaware River corridor once built its economy on the extraction and transportation of coal and timber and felt a brief kiss of death with propositions for natural gas drilling in the area. Times have changed: the river itself is now the economic resource. The area increasingly caters to the tourist economy, with renewed interest from New Yorkers leaving the city at the advent of COVID-19. The river, and subsequently Skinner’s Falls, is a recreational money-making powerhouse, attracting many people to the natural scenic beauty and the glories of a well preserved, “clean” river (we won’t talk about the recent micro-plastic studies here).

The bridge, though intact, remains closed to traffic. Over the past ten years, the bridge has undergone some emergency repairs, reopened for periods of time, but would quickly close again with “in critical condition” branded onto it without remission. Earlier this year, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) began a Planning and Environmental Linkages Study, which is “used to identify transportation issues and environmental concerns, which can then be applied to make planning decisions,”[1] also known as a survey and a comment period. Used as a tool to address processes required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Linkages Study intends to look at how the bridge is used and what the needs of the local community are before fully developing a process and plan of action for the bridge.

The Environmental Linkages study commenced with a rather, shall we say, passionate town meeting. PennDOT hired AECOM, a private consulting firm, to conduct the studies and planning necessary for the Skinner’s Falls Bridge Project, which they have been dutiful to attempt. The town meeting revealed three choices: decommission the bridge; restore the bridge to its historical integrity as a one lane, Baltimore through Truss style by repairing the super and substructure; or replace the bridge with a brand-new two-lane bridge, graded for 40 tons, accommodating the weight of vehicles such as full-size fire trucks, tracker trailers, construction vehicles, and dump trucks.

Approaching this community with AECOM’s version of “a collaborative and integrated planning approach” quickly became tinder for activism around saving the bridge.[2] It is easy and at times justified to feel that the community engagement techniques used for projects like this drip of tokenism (in reference to Arnstein’s ladder for planning folks).[3] AECOM’s invitation to become an “advisor” to the planning committee appeared to fall short of desiring real input from community members. The survey and the comment period were good starting points, but many people felt the comment period was too short and the survey was lacking.

Concerning the options presented by PennDOT, decommission the bridge you say? How hopeless! Expand the bridge to a two-lane bridge weighted for commercial traffic? There is a joke in Pennsylvania, taken very much at PennDOT’s expense: If you are driving straight on a PA road, you are definitely drunk. The roads on either side of this bridge run through Historic Districts, are winding with sharp turns and patches sloping down towards the creek embankments. The roads simply are not graded for increased traffic across a two-lane bridge. The tourist destination downstream of the bridge hosts a patch of rapids that could very easily be disturbed by increased construction and displacement of water and materials upstream.

Beyond the practical considerations of engineering and feasibility, what do we want the bridge to symbolize? What do we want the bridge to do? The community is known for its activism and eventual victory over the proposal of natural gas drilling in the area.[4] People are extremely protective of the Delaware River, which is not only significant economically, but ecologically and as the watershed for New York City’s drinking water.[5] AECOM walked into the front door of a quiet town in the sticks with a survey in hand, perhaps thinking it would appease the requirements for community engagement without too much of an issue, yet they found internationally acclaimed environmental activists sitting at the table demanding a deeper and more critical conversation about the impact these decisions can have on community vitality and morale.

The comment period that was originally scheduled to end in May was extended to June at the urgent request of many community members. Local newspapers published articles, a local organization known for its role in the Anti-Fracking movement came forward and created new community engagement opportunities, providing people with updated information and ways to get involved.[6] The community conversation seemed to come back to the idea that we are talking about more than just a piece of infrastructure. We are discussing the present and future of how we create vibrant rural and regional areas. The Northeastern corner of Pennsylvania and sections of New York across the river have always served as important natural corridors and respite from the city. In planning, we often discuss the metastasizing of cities, the urban sprawl which has crawled into our laps as one of planning’s most pressing issues. The Milanville Bridge, with its unassuming stature, has renewed the dialogue about preservation for many people in the area. What is worth preserving and what will we choose to alter in pursuit of growth, or opportunity, or economic development? Who gets to make that decision, and how do you ensure the inclusion of local voices, especially in areas that are often spoken about as if “no-one lives here”?

Survey results are in from AECOM. 286 people responded to the survey with additional numbers of comments sent separately to AECOM via email. AECOM’s report implies that many people who left comments via the survey noted rehabilitation of the bridge as a theme, as well as the importance of the bridge as a nationally registered historic place.[7] The future of the bridge relies heavily on funding and what meets the bottom line of infrastructure needs. However, as the national conversation around aging infrastructure continues to unfold, deciding the future of the Milanville Bridge is a touchstone issue to examine.

[1] PennDOT. Skinner’s Falls Bridge PEL Study FAQ.

[2] PennDOT. Skinners Falls Bridge Project.

[3] Arnstein, S. (1969.) A ladder of citizen participation. Journal of the American Planning Association, 35(4), 216–224.

[4] Mok, Aaron. (2021). The Delaware River Basin Commission Bans Fracking. The Sierra Club.

[5] American Rivers. Delaware River.

[6] Damascus Citizens for Sustainability.

[7] PennDOT. Skinners Falls Bridge PEL Study Public Survey Results.

Ruby is a rising second year master’s student in the Department of City and Regional Planning. Ruby specializes in land use and environmental planning, with a sustained interest in food systems, climate change, and equitable access to resources. Ruby received a dual bachelor’s degree from Guilford College in Biology and Religious Studies. She loves playing music, exploring North Carolina, and owning a lot of books that she never reads.

Edited by: Elijah Gullett

Featured Image courtesy of: Owen Walsh, The River Reporter, 2020

Reading for the Job Search and the Soul Search: Capital City & Prophetic City

April 1, 2021 / odrozd

By Evan King

People who go into the planning profession are inclined to like walkable, human-scale environments, effective public transit, vibrant cultural life, diverse culture and job opportunities, and other such things. One irony of planning is that the job often brings people to places that do not have these factors or are maybe at the beginning stages of incorporating them.

Even a job of trying to change things is an optimistic and unlikely outcome. As with any profession intent on improving the world, disappointment in this regard can generate quite a lot of cynicism and hopelessness. Despite drawbacks, I still want to do this job. There are two books that have done wonders for me in rectifying the ideals of the planning profession with its realities. What an aspiring planner may need is a good hard look at the cities of New York and Houston, through the fresh and subversive voices of authors Samuel Stein and Stephen Klineberg.

Samuel Stein: Capital City

In a similar manner to Howard Zinn’s telling of US history in A People’s History of the United States, Stein’s Capital City, Gentrification and the Real Estate State is very much a “People’s History” of American planning, serving as a counterweight to Jane Jacobs’ Death and Life and other sacred texts. Urban renewal was indeed a crime against humanity, as is continuing suburban sprawl, but what about the coinciding de-funding of public housing? Can we really say design is the sole problem when federal, state, and local governments have done all they possibly could to subsidize white homeowners and impoverish (and increasingly force everyone to become) renters? Stein’s book is not an outright repudiation of Jacobs, like A People’s History is of other accounts of US history, but rather an affirmation with a profound shift in the implications. Jacobs said success can breed self-destruction in a city. You could say that is happening in New York now, but are design elements solely culpable? What else is going on here?

Stein provides a vivid and intricate picture of gentrification in New York, a city so commoditized that any improvement in urban form seems to hurt more people than it helps. Developers, egged on by city and state tax giveaways, build towers designed to be expensive and largely unoccupied. Buildings and properties get passed off at higher and higher prices to other large owners in a scheme that pointlessly raises rents across the city and seems destined for a disastrous collapse for all parties.

Stein enumerates actions that planners, governments, and organizers can take to fight the injustices of urban life as run by real estate. The message is stridently socialist, which is no problem for me. To me, however, the takeaway is a (probably unintended) confirmation of my growing dislike for the glamorous side of urbanism: the modern trend of re-urbanization as a change in fashion, usually at the expense of the most vulnerable people. Even the word “urbanism” seems to embody how pretentious the whole thing is. Doing the work of making good urban environments possible in “unfashionable” places feels a lot more righteous and even more appealing after reading Stein’s book. Sure, there is justice to be done in New York and much to enjoy, but New York does not need me.

Stephen Klineberg: Prophetic City

Stephen Klineberg’s Prophetic City tells the economic and demographic story of Houston, a contender for the world’s least glamorous city and something of an urban horror story that is nonetheless a gem in other ways. The book is an exercise in seeing beauty and potential. Metropolitan Houston is the most culturally diverse region in the country. The city’s anathema to planning, resistance to regulation, and reliance on toxic industry have led to eclectic business and social environments more inclined to fight for social justice and environmental causes. In the recent presidential and senate elections, Georgia demonstrated the phenomenon of a voter-suppressed state; there is every indication that Texas is similar. Houston has a population overwhelmingly progressive in political, social and economic views, but the city is under the thumb of strategically malapportioned political representation. Houston area residents want greater racial integration, better city services, and better urban environments, but the state does not necessarily represent them in these interests.

At times, Klineberg writes with infuriating optimism, and without the socialist conscience Stein has about what “economic revitalization” usually means for most people. However, he consistently reminds us of political realities after exhaustively outlining demographic and economic trends. The overall picture according to Klineberg and other authors is that, Texas, and especially Houston, is the future. Booming cities like Houston are places where there is work to be done, and where the most work probably should be done.

In recent conversations about jobs with my classmates, people have been frustrated and often cynical. I count myself as one of the most guilty. Some have understandably realized they do not want to be planners. However, if you still want to be an urban planner, I pose a question: what are you really trying to do with this degree? You’re probably not in it just for the money. Are you trying to live in a wonderful vibrant place or create one? There is nothing wrong with the former. It’s a great thing in fact. The latter is naïve to be sure, but if you’re open to my suggestion, I say have an open mind. Go to that sprawling boomtown or struggling backwater. Maybe you won’t really accomplish anything, but maybe you will!

I am a born and bred northerner; I need my cold, snowy winters and their miraculous springs, and I like not having my political voice gerrymandered away. Yet a substantial portion of the planning work is in the south, and one thing I’ve noticed is that almost every planning job interview I have had so far has involved a panel member saying they never wanted to live in the south, but they have loved the past 10 to 15 years and are here to stay. Klineberg’s book presents statistically significant proportions of transplants saying this about Houston. Maybe I’ve just spent enough time idle and made a decision I am rightly or wrongly sticking with, but I still want to do planning. Personally, I am having a hard time being picky about where. People move to follow opportunities, and in my limited experience, it pays to be open-minded on the various forms opportunities might take.

Author Bio: Evan King is a second-year master’s student in city and regional planning. His interests include transportation policy in the developing world, light rail, and freight movement on inland waterways. He can found in his free time trying to kayak long distances and making hand-drawn maps. Evan hails from central Connecticut and completed an undergraduate degree in Maryland. Opinions are his own.

Featured Image courtesy of iStockphoto. Other images show the covers of the recommended books: Capital City, Gentrification and the Real Estate State by Samuel Stein and Prophetic City: Houston on the Cusp of a Changing America by Stephen L. Klineberg.

Edited by: Ruby Brinkerhoff

Weaving together the Threads of Our Community: Weaver Street Market

November 21, 2017 / odrozd

This piece was originally published by UNC undergraduate students Adam Hasan and Ezra Rawitsch on their personal blog, Global Third Space, on June 15, 2017.

If the sun hadn’t traced a low, southerly path across the sky that morning, it’d have seemed like the first day of autumn. A chilly breeze wound its way through the enormous oak that hangs over the Weaver Street Lawn, and dozens of people—of all ages—gathered in the patchwork shadow of the tree to take part in a ritual of great importance to this part of America: breakfast.

In fact, it was January, but the fleeting good weather belied the truth, and in the unseasonably warm morning air, the wind carried notes of new music, fresh coffee, and hearty meals shared between families and friends. The sun had brought the community back outside to a surprising and delightful patch of dirt outside this natural foods co-op. Here, as on practically every Sunday morning, they gathered to eat and chat, to unwind from the demands of an academic schedule. Weaver Street is a magnet for local academics, like the all-Slavic literary discussion group seated under the farthest reaches of the mighty oak’s canopy, or the 2015 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry who would occupy the table after them. Whether students or professors, there was little question the space was an extension of the nearby University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: even the university Wi-Fi network has a special hub here. It’s either the cloudless sky or the sea of UNC apparel—whatever the reason, Weaver Street Market is tinted Carolina Blue.

But if Chapel Hill’s academics feel like owners of this space, they do so as a small part of a far larger and more diverse group. “It’s hard to believe a town of 60,000 people can be as international as this one,” said former Chapel Hill Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt in an interview late last year, “and we probably have a greater international flair to our daily lives than any city of our size in the world.” But whatever international clientele the co-op serves, its success is firmly rooted in the tendency of that same diverse group to fall in love with local community. Weaver Street Market has more than 18,000 consumer-owners—all co-op members who filter through the aisles of organic food and linger in the pleasant shade outside. In a local community of fewer than 100,000 inhabitants, almost everyone in Chapel Hill and Carrboro knows or is a partial owner of this cooperative and this space. So the chilly mornings here belong to a spectrum of community members, bound by responsibility to patronize and engage with the cooperative—but not necessarily by any other commonalities. In this regard, Weaver Street is the glue that binds together a community whose disparate origins might otherwise tend to isolate.

Take Bruce as an example of Weaver Street’s ability to, well, weave together the threads of this community. He is a tall man with graying hair and a kind disposition that could put anybody at ease. But he’s not originally from Carrboro—he came here in 1998 on parole just out of a Florida prison for a crime he committed in 1980. He moved to Saxapahaw, a town about 15 miles west of Carrboro, to a place called the Human Kindness Foundation, an Ashram-based community. There, Bruce “practiced kindness and Hindu, Buddhist, and Christian meditation.” To hear Bruce tell it, Weaver Street Market was what drew him into this community:

“I stayed out there for about eight months, and then I came to Chapel Hill. I got a job at the Weaver Street bread bakery, where I baked bread for about three years. When I first got here, I didn’t dance as I do now. And if you saw me, you would see me sitting on a bench reading a book, or doing yoga, or talking to people.”

Bruce quickly found home in a community that values public access to art and music. Within four blocks of the Lawn, there are ten public murals, many of which depict Carrboro’s diversity, community values, and natural environment. Every Thursday evening and Sunday morning between spring and autumn, the Lawn regularly hosts live music from local musicians. It is through this cultural context that Bruce discovered he was a dancer.

“One day I came back for the Thursday night community. And I was sitting at the table watching some kids and a friend of mine dance around this tree that everybody loves.” Bruce paused to look affectionately at the large oak tree which towered over us before continuing, “And I looked out and I said to God, ‘God, I want to dance with the kids,’ and God said to me, ‘Well, get out there and dance with the kids.'”

Carrboro is home to medical students, lawyers, artists, and yes, even anarchists. Photo Credit: Adam Hasan

Bruce’s story is just one thread of the fabric that gives the Lawn its identity. The space is also designed as much for children as it is for adults.

“I actually live in Durham, but I come here because I’m a co-op member, and my son likes to climb the trees,” Tim, a local musician, explained to me as his son swung off a low-lying branch of an oak tree and ran up to him. When asked about why he liked the Lawn, without hesitation his son replied “because I like to climb the trees!”

Whether intentionally or not, the Lawn is a space designed for children. It is well defined, serves as a natural playground, and is always occupied by fellow parents and patrons alike.

“Really, one of the coolest things about this space,” Tim said as a smile crossed his face, “is that I can be here talking to someone, while my son is having a conversation with those people at that table over there, who are strangers – I’ve never met them before – and I can feel totally comfortable with it.” Enrique Peñalosa, mayor of Bogota, Colombia, once described children as an “indicator species” in urban space, stating “if we can build a successful city for children, we will have a successful city for all people.”

Shaheen, a Muslim student at UNC from Raleigh, explains that the space offers safety for more than just children, “Carrboro feels like a really open-minded, diverse community, and I feel safe here, like no one is judging you for looking different.” She brings the girl she babysits to the Lawn as well. As she says, “I like coming here because I get to see my friends, do my homework, and be outside.” Coming to the lawn never fails to elicit the simple, utilitarian beauty of life’s everyday experiences.

“If we can testify to nothing else in this world, we can testify that it’s beautiful. Look at that!” Bruce says as he points to the sunset, “You can’t tell me that ain’t beautiful.”

“Look at that!” he says again in a similar fashion as he points to the limbs of the oak tree, “You can’t tell me that ain’t beautiful. And in the spring time, oh my God!”

The Weaver Street Market Lawn. Photo Credit: Adam Hasan

Unlike many grocery stores whose scale necessitates a car trip, the co-op appeals to daily visitors and students. Three of Chapel Hill’s fare-free bus lines make stops at the Market, and one of the area’s few paved, dedicated bike paths sends a constant stream of cyclists right into the mouth of Carrboro at Weaver Street and Main. And while it’s a bit of a hike from the UNC campus, students still make the trek even when the buses aren’t running.

For Bruce, too, the Lawn at Weaver Street Market is more than just a social space—it’s a spiritual one. “One of the beautiful things I learned through dancing is that I can get into that same sacred space I get into when I sit for hours in silent meditation,” he explained. But initially, he was worried about dancing in front of people, afraid of what they might think of him. What quickly became apparent, however, was that Carrboro was different from where he had lived before.

“It’s a very open minded town. Because when I first got here—I’m originally from New Jersey—I used to go on break, and I would be walking down the street here, and keep in mind I don’t know anybody, I’m new. And people would walk by me, and they would say ‘Good morning!’ and I would do like this…” he says as he reenacts his experience by looking around theatrically, “because I thought they were talking to somebody behind me. Because where I’m from people don’t speak to people, unless they know them. Carrboro was more open-hearted than where I grew up. And that’s why I love the town of Carrboro, and that’s why I come here all the time.”

But not everyone was willing to accept Bruce. In 2006, management at Carr Mill Mall, which owns the Lawn, banned him from dancing. “I was out here dancing one morning, and the security guard was sitting right there by the tree. He got up, came toward me, I took my headphones off, and he said to me, ‘I just got a call from the mall manager and he said that you are not allowed to dance on the lawn anymore.’ I said, ‘Hmm. Well, officer, you tell the manager I said thank you for allowing me to dance as long as I have been dancing out here. And tell him I said Merry Christmas and God bless you, and may God bless you.’ I bowed to the security guard, I got my stuff, I got in my car, and I drove off.” It was the beginning of a highly publicized debate over who could use the Lawn, how they could use it, and who could regulate its use. “Even though I handled it with diplomacy and kindness, when I got in my car and drove off, I just about cried all the way out there. Because it was like his words of telling me I can’t dance out here was like a spear to my heart.”

The kindness Bruce had shown the people of Carrboro did not go unanswered. For the next three months, the town rallied around him and fought for his right to dance on the Lawn. The dispute attracted media attention from around the Research Triangle, and community members from as far away as Raleigh lobbied the mall to change their policy. The message Bruce and the citizens of Carrboro sent was clear: the Lawn belongs to all members of the community, and everyone has a right to enjoy it.

There is a temptation to observe third spaces in a vacuum—what works, what doesn’t, what’s positive, what’s negative. But most third spaces are far more complex than their obvious attributes. Third spaces are where we choose to spend time, yes, but in a way they are the sites of life’s most important moments: the quotidian experiences that make up who we are—as individuals and as communities. To judge if a public space is “good” for a community or not would ignore that third spaces are our communities, and the people who populate them the stewards of the microculture that emanates from any third space. Third spaces are not just places to sit—they’re expressions of the values and customs communities around the world choose to share. To hear it from Bruce, Weaver Street Market, perhaps to a passer-by nothing more than a grocery store, is a deep symbol of a community that is welcoming and open to all who choose to engage it:

“If it weren’t for this loving, compassionate, diverse community, Carrboro, I wouldn’t be able to dance right here. And that’s why I come here. And that’s why I love this space.”

Featured Image: Weaver Street Market. Photo Credit: Adam Hasan

About the Authors: Adam Hasan is a junior undergraduate student studying geography and city & regional planning. His research interests include understanding the actors involved in defining and redefining Global South urbanisms through social movements, governance systems, and media, as well as the history of spatial planning in post-colonial regions. Adam has previously worked with participatory informal settlement upgrading in South Africa, coastal resilience planning in Brooklyn, and was once ranked internationally as one of Simcity 4’s best city builders. In his free time he enjoys birdwatching, coffee roasting, and plays vice-skip on a local curling team.

Ezra Rawitsch studies economics, urban planning, and the geography of development at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Raised in Los Angeles, he spends his free time improving his guitar-playing, hand-drawing, and people-watching skills. Now, he explores the art and data that drives the urban world. His favorite third space is Stories Books & Café in Echo Park, Los Angeles.

An Ode to Planners without Bicycles

January 31, 2017 / odrozd

A Poem by a Bikeless Planning Student

First day of classes
For Planning masters students
No space on bike rack!

Typical planners
Riding bicycle to class
Is it required?

Cyclists everywhere!
Zooming along in their lanes
Cycling heaven

The transpo students
Love their bicycles a lot
They even build them

Studying is hard
But can do work on the bus
Transit advantage

Though I love walking
Do I buy bike to fit in?
The pressure is on

Then one day in class
I meet a kindred spirit
A planner, no bike!

“Did you bike to class?”
Because planners often do
“No?? I’m just like you!”

Our alliance is
Planners Without Bicycles
Few and far between

But planners unite
In transit, walking, and yes,
Cycling — in being green.

Featured Image: Bicycle locked up to bike rack. Photo Credit: Creative Commons.

About the Author: Katy is a Masters student in the Department of City & Regional Planning specializing in transportation and land use. She spent seven years in the Washington, DC area and as a result, she has a love-love relationship with DC’s Metrorail and all things urban. She is passionate about pedestrian safety and the pedestrian’s right to the city and the street. Prior to coming to UNC, Katy worked in change management. She likes long runs on Carrboro’s short bike trails and eating popcorn.

Community Planning for Age-Friendly Communities: Orange County Creates Its Next Master Aging Plan

January 4, 2017 / odrozd

Orange County, NC is already a great place for people of all ages to live, but the county Department on Aging is leading an effort to become even more age-friendly. To achieve this goal, the Department is leading a comprehensive community planning process to create a five-year Master Aging Plan (MAP). Like previous MAPs, the 2017-2022 MAP will become a roadmap for decision-making and action around all things aging.

When I joined the first MAP process I was 41 years old. At that time, aging was mostly an academic issue to me. Now, at 61, I feel very fortunate to be part of a process that I know will impact the quality of my later years. As the director of UNC’s Partnerships in Aging Program and a consultant to Orange County’s Department on Aging, I envision a time when every age is celebrated and elderhood is viewed as a time for continued growth, thriving, and participation. I’m sharing the MAP process in this post with Carolina Angles because I believe celebrating every age requires planning for every age.

MAP Process

All the previous MAPs were developed through citizen and stakeholder input, and with each cycle our planning processes and implementation partnerships have improved and strengthened. To develop the 2017-2022 MAP we took gathering citizen and stakeholder input to the next level using the following strategies with multiple stakeholder groups:

1. First, we established a Steering Committee comprised of leaders from the Board of County Commissioners, county department heads, faith-based groups, health services, and public service organizations such as our libraries, EMS, and sheriff’s office. Members of the Steering Committee met to learn about the MAP process, serve as advisors to the process, and publicly commit their organization’s resources to support the MAP.

Orange County MAP Process 2017-2022 Steering Committee. Photo Credit: Cherie Rosemond

2. Second, the County joined AARP’s Age Friendly Community Initiative – the first in North Carolina to do so. The Age Friendly Community concept began as a project of the World Health Organization (WHO). Working in 33 cities in 22 countries, the WHO identified the essential ingredients of an age-friendly community. The AARP translated the WHO work for the United States and instituted a program of measurement for the “age-friendliness” of states, counties, cities, towns, and neighborhoods.

3. Third, we formed a leadership team to plan our community input process which included leaders from the Department on Aging, Advisory Board members, myself as a consultant from UNC, and a multidisciplinary cadre of students from nursing, public health, city and regional planning, and social work. Mary Fraser, Aging Transitions Administrator with Department on Aging, served as our “leader of leaders.” Mary worked tirelessly to ensure we listened carefully to our community and that our efforts were comprehensive and respectful. Mary was ever-willing to try something new and encouraged all of us to do the same. Her positive spirit and attention to the smallest details were key to the success of our community planning process.

4. Next, we spent 4 months gaining input from citizens and organizational representatives using 3 methods: survey, focus groups, and key informant interviews.

MAP Survey: We developed a survey which asked citizens for worries about aging and how they felt Orange County was already doing with addressing key aging issues. Surveys were distributed electronically and in hard copy through listservs, senior centers, county and town employers, libraries, and health service organizations. The surveys had 1,006 responses (860 from Orange County residents). Respondents were 73% urban and 27% rural, normally distributed in age with the most representation from the 65-74 age range, and the most represented income category was $25,000-$50,000 per household annually.
Focus Groups: We held 14 focus groups throughout the County, with one focus group in Mandarin and another in Spanish. Building on the survey questions, we also asked participants to offer their “magic wand” solutions (i.e., solutions not bounded by time or money) to problems of aging that they were experiencing.
Key Informant Interviews: The director of the Department on Aging, Janice Tyler, met individually with 34 people from 26 key stakeholder groups across the county to learn how organizations play a role in the Master Aging Plan and its implementation. We heard from and garnered support from the following sectors: government, healthcare, religious organizations, community services, and educational institutions.

Transcriptions from the focus groups and key informant interviews were summarized and analyzed for themes. Then we held two additional community meetings to ask two broad questions: Did we get it right? And what’s missing? Eighty participants attended these meetings, which were added to the existing data. The results of the analyzed community input fell into 5 domains that are roughly aligned with the WHO/AARP Age-Friendly Communities Initiative: Housing, Transportation and Outdoor Spaces, Social inclusion, Civic Participation and Employment, and Community Service and Health. Within each domain, issues and action steps were identified and prioritized.

5. The final step in getting community input and buy-in was to present our MAP data to the Steering Committee. The purpose of the meeting was to share our results and ask the committee to advise us about who else needed to be at the MAP table and what resources their organizations would commit to the MAP process.

Orange County MAP Process 2017-2022 Community Meeting. Photo Credit: Cherie Rosemond

Takeaways

Here are a few suggestions that other communities might take home from Orange County’s MAP experience:

Get students on board and develop strong academic-community partnerships.
Employ multiple methods to garner community input: surveys, focus groups, and interviews.
Pursue every possible channel to get surveys out to the community, including electronic, pen and paper, listservs, and early voting.
Create a steering committee with “teeth”, asking each organizational representative to publicly commit resources to support the MAP.
Feed the results of the community assessment back to people who responded and do a “member check.”
Start meetings by asking people “What are we missing and who are we missing?”
Conclude meetings by asking people to describe their vision for an age-friendly community and then, ask what resources they will commit to making it so.

Creating environments that are truly age-friendly requires coordinated action from many sectors. Our experience of doing a “deep dive” into Orange County’s community was fun and inspiring. Throughout, we learned that conversations about aging can bring old and young people, public and private sectors together to ultimately make our community a great place to grow old.

About the Author: Dr. Cherie Rosemond is the Director of the Partnerships in Aging Program at UNC. Since 2012, Dr. Rosemond has served as a consultant to the Orange County Department on Aging. In this capacity, she has worked with a team of aging services providers, UNC students, and community members to develop and implement Orange County’s Master Aging Plan. Her focus areas include senior housing, transportation, and caregiving.

Planners for Public Pools

July 22, 2016 / odrozd

On hot days when I was a kid, my mom would occasionally load the car with a bag of towels and sunscreen and take my sisters and me to the pool. We rolled down all four windows to feel the breeze that lasted for the 20 sticky minutes it took to get there. I remember the blue-green water, thick with children’s bodies, shouting and waving and turning flips. While the pool was never particularly clean, I don’t ever remember caring. It was a break from the hot and desperate boredom of summer vacation.¹

1947 postcard of midcentury pool aesthetics. Credit: Postcard Roundup

While planners love parks in many forms – from wild conservation areas and landscaped public parks to community gardens, pop-up pocket parks, and park(ing) day – they don’t always think of public pools as parks. But pools function as parks in many ways: they invite physical activity, recreation, communion, and chance interaction with strangers. The unique and intimate public realm of the municipal pool – people take off their clothes when they go to the pool and basically share an oversized bathtub – has a storied history. By revisiting this history, we can see the influence of the public pool on health, environment, and social outcomes that planners care about.

The oldest pool known to man is the 5,000-year-old Great Bath of Mohenjodaro in what is now Pakistan. The pool is so beloved that the its geometric architecture is depicted on Pakistan’s currency. Millennia later, the Romans used public pools for sport and military training. But for most of human history, public pools offered a place for bathing, and this tradition continues in public bathhouses across the world.

Ancient pool, Mohenjodaro in Pakistan. Credit: Saqib Qayyum

In the United States, too, the public pool was a place for getting clean throughout the nineteenth century. As Jeff Wiltse describes in Contested Waters: A Social History of Swimming Pools in America, early public pools were segregated by sex and by social class, but not by race or ethnicity. Working class immigrants, African-Americans, and Anglo whites all enjoyed the public pools together during times set aside for women and for men.

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Hamilton Fish Pool in New York City, 1936. Built by the Works Progress Administration. Source: NYC Department of Parks and Recreation

The early twentieth century saw an explosion in recreational swimming, which inspired creativity in swimming pool design and size. This was also the era of segregation, and as public policy created and enforced black-white segregation in cities, municipal leaders implemented segregation in public pools. As symbols of Jim Crow and broader segregation, pools became a centerpiece of civil rights resistance.

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Six young men protest Jim Crow by taking a dip. Credit: Universal Pops Flickr user. This photo is part of an exhibit at the Raleigh City Museum, Raleigh, North Carolina.

As Wiltse writes, public pools were community resources over which claims for racial justice were articulated. In 1962, for instance, four black swimmers and two white swimmers entered Raleigh’s white-only Pullen Park Pool together in protest. The City of Raleigh shuttered the pool in response, although it was later reopened and eventually replaced with the indoor Pullen Aquatic Center. Many cities closed pools rather than integrate them, a practice deemed constitutional by the Supreme Court in the 1971 case Palmer v. Thompson because it denied all residents, not just some, access to pools.

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Swimming isn’t the only pool activity at Philadelphia’s Pop-Up Pool Project. Credit: Monica Peters, Knight Foundation

Fifty years later, many public pools serve neighborhoods or cities that still have de facto segregation, but as with any community asset, thoughtful outreach and community-building projects can help cross social and racial boundaries. Public pools have enormous social, health-related, and design potential. Planners should take inspiration from projects that have recognized the twenty-first century potential for the public pool as a community asset: In Philadelphia, the pilot Pop-Up Pool Project breathed new life into the concrete surroundings of the public pool by adding “low-cost/high-design” elements like playful furniture. Similarly, in North Minneapolis, swimmers enjoy the first modern pool that is kept clean by an ecological system and filtered by plants instead of chemicals (the pool vacuum also helps). City Lab reports on floating pools, some with swimmers and some still on paper, that rest in natural bodies of water like New York City’s East River. These projects demonstrate the potential for pools to help us move toward many different kinds of social and environmental goals.

What is the name of your favorite pool? Let us know in the Comments.

Featured Image: Pop-Up Pool Project in Philadelphia. Credit: John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

¹ While writing this article, I talked to my mom about taking us to the pool. It turns out that she can only ever remember going to the indoor pool with us! The indoor pool had its own allure, with its frigid water and large group showers where adults dared to roam without even a bathing suit on.

About the Author

Amanda Whittemore Martin is an AICP-certified city planner and PhD student at UNC. She has done work in D.C., Nevada, New Orleans, Rhode Island, and across the southeastern states. Her research focuses on strategies that direct public and private investments toward shared prosperity, with a special focus on economic resilience in coastal communities. She holds a BA from Harvard and a master’s degree from MIT, and she loves to go swimming.

Seven Creative Placemaking Resources

April 6, 2016 / odrozd

It’s that time of year again: the Carolina Planning Journal is being copyedited and proofread and then copyedited and proofread again. And it is looking very beautiful. So: we’ve compiled a list of seven creative placemaking resources in order to get all of you excited about this upcoming volume, “Just Creativity: Perspectives on Inclusive Placemaking.”

ArtPlace’s Blog Series called “The Huddle”

ArtPlace is a funder for creative placemaking projects all across the United States. This blog series spotlights “conversations” between projects and organizations funded by ArtPlace, in which they “talk through topics, get advice, and perhaps even gossip a little.” It’s a great source for local governments or people interested in creative placemaking. This series was launched in January 2016 and has already published a great piece on the funding landscape.

January 2016 Volume of the Architectural Review: Culture

This volume of the Architectural Review is introduced with a challenge: “When it comes to cultural vibrancy, it is not simply a case of build it, and they will come. There is nothing more likely to put off a collective of artists than the sanitized insertion of a new-build cultural campus or the top-down creation of an artists’ village…A better investment would be the careful identification and preservation of urban subculture where it currently exists. Supporting these communities with cultural buildings, and providing long-term controlled cheap rent and subsidized start-up and studio space to keep the community together, is critical.”

Volume 10 of the San Francisco Federal Reserve’s Community Development Investment Review

This volume of the Community Development Investment Review has pieces written by creative placemaking heavyweights like Ann Markusen, Darren Walker and Xavier de Souza Briggs of the Ford Foundation, Rip Rapson of the Kresge Foundation, and Jamie Bennett of ArtPlace. Two particularly helpful articles: one on financing creative places from Deutsche Bank and another on evaluation indicators from the Urban Institute.

ArtForce Website

North Carolina-based ArtForce is a great resources for communities in the state that would like to create, build, and retain their creative economies.

3. Gehl Architects

The firm that helped turn Copenhagen into a bike-ped haven. These folks have developed the Public Space/Public Life survey model and have transformed many underused public spaces into famous icons of public street-life vitality. Gehl Architects piloted “Broadway Boulevard” in New York City in which for one day all major squares along Broadway were closed to automobile traffic and temporary furniture was moved in.

2. Projects for Public Spaces

PPS is a New York City-based firm known for pioneering public placemaking. It offers weekend long trainings on topics like how to create a successful and thriving public market and placemaking implementation and management.

The Carolina Planning Journal

The upcoming volume of the Carolina Planning Journal, of course! We can’t wait to share an interview with Ann Markusen, articles from the Rural Studio, the Steel Yard in Providence, Opportunity Threads here in North Carolina, and more. Preview the table of contents below!

Placemaking, Underground: BART to Revitalize all 44 Stations

January 12, 2016 / odrozd

This article is adapted from a piece originally published by Rachel Wexler and Rachel Dinno Taylor in San Francisco Planning and Urban Research’s [SPUR] journal The Urbanist, on May 11 2015.

Stockholm’s metro system, or Tunnelbana, is widely known as the world’s longest art gallery. Since the 1950s, the system has been contracting with artists to work with their architects and engineers to transform 90 of its stations into fully immersive experiences. Photo Credit: Author’s Own.

Transit hubs are often massive, and massively underutilized, public spaces. Take for example the Bay Area Rapid Transit [BART] and San Francisco Muni Metro systems. Nearly 500,000 riders traipse the drab halls of these transit stations, heads down and nose plugged. It’s a hairy network of grime encrusted tile corridors reminiscent of a post-apocalyptic county hospital. If you’re lucky, the sweet strains of an impromptu violin sonata may shake you from your destination-driven perseverance and it’s as though an angel had descended into the purgatory of afternoon rush hour. But otherwise, aside from waiting for your train, not much else is going to make you stop.

San Francisco’s Montgomery St. Station. Photo Credit: Author’s Own.

However, for the first time in its 40 years of existence, BART is planning a comprehensive overhaul of its 44 stations. And, due to the advocacy of the non-profit organization SubArt, they’re considering an aesthetic overhaul to improve the quality of riders’ experiences. Now, with the Triangle light rail system is in its planning stages, is the time for the system’s transportation planners to consider the importance of art, design, and placemaking in the transit planning process. Let’s look at this case study to see why.

Yes, the BART budget is limited: BART must build new stations, perform routine maintenance, and purchase new rolling stock. However, studies investigating the impact of art in transit have proven that it is not just a pretty “nice-to-have” addition. In fact, it can be a powerful tool that can have a massive effect not only on rider behavior, safety, and public perception, but it can also increase economic activity and investment in the areas surrounding stations. Furthermore, these benefits can come about through limited fiscal investment on the part of the transit authority when public-private partnerships are taken into consideration.

BART and Muni Metro stations serve over 90 times more people than the San Francisco area’s most frequently visited museums. The city’s underground transit corridors represent a tremendous opportunity to enhance riders’ experience, engage a broader spectrum of the public in the arts, and reflect the innovative and artistic cultural capital of the Bay Area.

At Candidplatz Station, Munich, the walls are covered in colored panels using the full color spectrum. The design riffs on the theme of motion — trains carry riders through the color wheel as they move through the station. Author’s photo.

The United States federal government encourages transit systems nationwide to make use of the cost-effective benefits of art in transit and even allocates up to 5% of federal funds to be used for the integration of art. The Federal Transit Administration states that, “the visual quality of the nation’s mass transit systems has a profound impact on transit patrons and the community at large. Good design and art can improve the appearance and safety of a facility, give vibrancy to its public spaces, and make patrons feel welcome.”

The fiscal efficiency and positive impact of art and design in transit has been documented globally:

Studies have shown that riders are willing to walk farther and pay more to use a station enhanced by art and design.
They are also willing to wait longer for trains due to the improved environment.
Art and design in transit have a multitude of other benefits, from increasing the overall use of public transportation to reducing crime and vandalism in stations, creating a safer environment for riders.
Studies have also found that large-scale art and design in the underground increases female ridership, helps with wayfinding, and creates pride of place.

Georg-Brauchle-Ring Station of the Munich U-Bahn

Furthermore, engaging local artists and community members in the planning and execution process can increase cross-cultural respect, community cohesion and pride, and encourage local investment. Other American cities, such as New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Seattle, and Chicago are already investing in significant underground art interventions and many more international cities, including Buenos Aires, Naples, and Taiwan, are reaping the benefits of comprehensive, immersive art and design programs in their public transit systems. BART’s imminent redesign offers the opportunity to demonstrate the global leadership and innovation of the city’s region.

In Naples, Italy, the positive impact of full-scale art is well documented. Studies show that riders are willing to walk farther, pay more, and wait longer for a train in a station enhanced by art and design.

Art and design opportunities reach well beyond traditional mosaics and murals. Cities have revitalized their stations with permanent design installations and created temporary exhibits that include light, music, and performance art by local and visiting artists. Shouldn’t the Bay Area, a region known throughout the world for its innovative culture and thriving art community, have dynamic underground metro stations that reflect the vibrancy above ground? In order to achieve a comprehensive and fully integrated revision, collaboration between designers, artists, and the public needs to occur during the planning process. In order to truly revitalize BART, the scope must reach beyond functionality and showcase the diversity of Bay Area culture through design and art that reinforces the importance of place.

At Westfriedhof Station, Munich, massive overhead lamps emit warm red and yellow hues while the walls are lit by diffuse purple. These seemingly massive changes in fact required minimal investment because they were achieved through a cost effective planning approach: city leaders and transit planners included artists and designers as well as engineers from the outset of the design process. Photo Credit: Author’s Own.

Visit SubArtSF.org for news and updates and follow on Facebook/SubArtSF

About the Author: Rachel Wexler is the co-editor of the Carolina Planning Journal and pursuing her master’s degree in City and Regional Planning. Her bachelor’s is in english from UC Berkeley; prior to beginning her master’s she worked as an editor, cook, and musician. Her academic work focuses on economic development, neighborhood revitalization, and placemaking. Her non-academic work focuses on playing in general and playing cello in particular. She also thinks frequently about Oakland, California and Berlin, Germany, both of which she calls home. These are also the urban spaces that brought her to this charming small town to study planning.

Public Space and Conscious Design: A Case Study

November 11, 2015 / odrozd

Think of your favorite public space. It could be the park near your childhood home. It might be the waterfront promenade where you run, or walk, or ride your bike at sunset. Perhaps it’s a busy downtown street. Now consider: what is it about this particular space that makes you happy? That makes you feel safe, comfortable, welcome, at home? It is likely that your favorite place was consciously designed to attract you to it, to keep you engaged with dynamic activities and programming, and to maximize social interaction: in essence, to create a cohesive sense of place.

The open space outside Weaver Street Market in Carrboro, NC. Photo Credit: Mia Candy

One of my favorite places in the small town of Carrboro that I now call home is the outdoor grounds at Weaver Street Market, a community owned grocery store. The space sits at the intersection of East Weaver Street and North Greensboro Street, and covers roughly 30,000 square feet of land. The site functions primarily as a place for patrons of the market to eat and drink, but the site has a multitude of other uses and is open to anyone, and is, as such, a truly public, open space.

Sitting and chatting at Weaver Street Market. Photo Credit: Mia Candy

I spend a lot of time in the space and enjoy its consistent vibrancy, but I recently set out to analyze why it works so well. Looking particularly for conscious design elements and social interactions, I spent a few hours walking around, sitting in, sketching, and photographing the space. What follows is a brief overview of my findings.

Author sketch of design elements and amenities in the space

The public space outside Weaver Street Market functions as the epicenter of the town. Its location at a central intersection as well as its proximity to varied retail and commercial activity and services brings a variety of residents into the space. However, the success of the space is that it encourages people to stay for hours on end instead of merely passing through.

Climbing trees at Weaver Street Market. Photo Credit: Mia Candy

A number of well-designed features of the space contribute to this comfortable and welcoming environment. The first is that it is primarily designed to encourage people to sit. The abundance of different types of seating options (benches, picnic tables, and small tables) and the shade and rain cover mean that the space offers places for anyone at virtually any time to sit and read, do work, meet friends, have a meal or a drink, or just people watch. It is also a space that encourages play: there is art to look at, trees to climb, and open space in which to run around, or dance, or play music.

Doing work at Weaver Street Market. Photo Credit: Mia Candy

The space is also dominated by natural elements, materials, and textures: greens and browns, tree planters and grass, red brick facades and walkways, and wooden tables. These features make the space feel somewhat like a natural ‘sanctuary,’ and noise from the nearby intersection is softened by tree cover along its edge.

But design features are not enough. Weaver Street offers free wifi, garbage disposal (including recycling), restrooms open to the public, and night time lighting, all of which allow people to remain in the space for long periods of time. In addition, the space is easily accessed from all directions and by all modes of transit, with a multitude of places to park a bicycle or car.

Place to sit, garbage disposal, bike racks and proximity to a bus stop

Weaver Street Market, like many of our favorite spaces, is actively designed to bring people together for extended periods of time. For this reason, it goes beyond existing as a neutral space and becomes a vibrant, dynamic, and truly public place.

About the Author: Mia is our Managing Editor of Online Content here at Angles, and is a second year master’s student in the Department of City and Regional Planning at UNC. She grew up in Cape Town, South Africa, where she first developed an interest in urbanism and the complexities of urban development in emerging cities. Mia lived in New York City for two years, researching occupational and environmental health. Her research focuses on planning for public space and urban design, and implementing placemaking strategies in the developing world. Mia’s lifelong dream is to write a children’s book.