Knight Foundation

Derek Douglas is the vice president for civic engagement at the University of Chicago. Below, he writes about the Place Project, a national model for revitalizing communities through arts and culture supported by Knight Foundation. Above: Student Nkosi Barber, 20, of Chicago uses a saw in the carpentry workshop for the Design Apprenticeship Program (DAP) at the Arts Incubator in Chicago, Friday, June 14, 2013. Photo by Bonnie Trafelet. As an urban research university located in one of America’s largest metropolitan areas, the University of Chicago is deeply enriched by the city we call home. We are also deeply invested in it—and in how what we do here can impact other cities around the world. Many of the UChicago’s top scholars have devoted their efforts to the improvement of urban health, access to jobs, housing, education and public safety, with an eye toward establishing best practices. The arts are also an essential element of our broad social commitment. We believe arts and culture have the power to bring communities together and enhance the vibrancy and economic vitality of neighborhoods. RELATED LINK "Place Project spreads artistic model of resident engagement to new communities"  by Theaster Gates on KnightBlog The Place Project is the UChicago’s latest investment in that belief and is aimed at testing a model for community development that supports arts and culture to transform communities and, importantly, expanding that model to communities across the country. This project will be led by Theaster Gates, who has pioneered work in this field. Trained as a multimodal artist and an urban planner, Theaster is recognized internationally as a leader in harnessing the power of arts and culture for positive transformation of underinvested neighborhoods. He is also director of Arts and Public Life, an initiative created by the UChicago in 2011 to strengthen its connections with the civic, cultural and artistic communities of the South Side. In March 2013, UChicago launched the flagship project of Arts and Public Life, the Arts Incubator in Washington Park, a dedicated space—envisioned by Theaster—for artists to grow professionally and to connect to the surrounding community. The Arts Incubator is one of the ways UChicago is aiming to be a catalyst for strong neighborhoods in the heart of Chicago’s South Side and to more deeply engage with our community as an anchor institution. Already, it has been an exciting opportunity for rich partnerships. In just a year, it has become a model for university investment in social and cultural innovation in Chicago and throughout the country.

Theaster Gates, an urban planner and sculptor, is director of the Arts and Public Life initiative at the University of Chicago. Below, he writes about the Place Project a national model for revitalizing communities through arts and culture supported by Knight Foundation.  Above: Artist-in-residence avery r. young, Tina Howell and Yaw sing with the group Low Tide during the evening reception at the Arts Incubator Friday, March 8, 2013, in Chicago's Washington Park neighborhood. Photo by Robert Kozloff. I grew up on the West Side of Chicago. For years, I watched building after building get torn down around me. At the time, it always seemed like there was a good reason. If something bad was happening in a place—whether it was drugs or prostitution or violence or just the potential for violence—the easiest thing to do was to tear down the building. People are always looking for the quick fix for urban problems—problems that have been, in some cases, six or seven decades in the making. But tearing down buildings  isn’t a solution to the bigger issues troubled neighborhoods face. RELATED LINK "University of Chicago taps creative energy of artists for creative projects" by Derek Douglas on KnightBlog.org As an undergraduate, I became very invested in the idea that people from neighborhoods like the one where I grew up on the West Side should have some responsibility for those places—because maybe nobody else would. In that sense, the start of my work in creative place-making had everything to do with nostalgia and a sense of duty toward the neighborhood where I grew up. In some ways, I think it started with an urgency to imagine that beautiful things might happen in that neighborhood. Tearing buildings down is quick. Changing neighborhoods by activating abandoned buildings through art—the kind of community engagement I do—takes time. Still, the beauty of this kind of community engagement is that, once it starts, and once the right structures are in place, it just happens.

Photo credit: Flickr user Will Vanlue. Next week we’re convening leaders in several fields from across the United States to talk about ideas that can make our cities better. This Civic Innovation in Action Studio will discuss ways we can program places to harness talent, advance opportunity and improve engagement. We hope to emerge with ideas we can put to the test in communities around the country. Harriet Tregoning knows more than a little about these issues. As the former planning director for the city of Washington, D.C., she helped lead that city’s transformation into a resurgent urban center. Now she’s working for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development as director of its Office of Economic Resilience. I asked her to share her thoughts on some questions we’ll be considering May 12-14 in Miami. Research shows that residential communities that are segregated by income are particularly likely to have low rates of upward economic mobility, and income segregation is on the rise. How might we nudge behavior to change this trajectory and increase the income diversity of neighborhoods? RELATED LINKS "Putting ideas into action to build better cities" by Carol Coletta on KnightBlog "Learning Lab gathers ideas on promoting community engagement" by Carol Coletta on KnightBlog "Learning Lab gathers ideas on making the most of talent in our cities" by Carol Coletta on KnightBlog "Boston adopts new tools to engage residents in civic life" by Nigel Jacobs on KnightBlog "Scaling an Etsy Economy for a changing workforce" by Dana Mauriello on KnightBlog H.T.: In many neighborhoods now, there is a mismatch between the existing building stock and the current demand for housing. Despite the fact that one to two generations ago, households were 50 percent larger than they are now, local zoning can act to limit affordability and exclude even historic levels of population. Households are now much smaller than they were a generation or two ago. That means a potential opportunity to adapt that older housing stock to a new multifamily reality, if the zoning allows it. That might mean what is currently a single-family, four-story row house could become two two-story flats or four one-story flats. That would restore historic levels of density but also allow higher levels of affordability because the smaller units would not be as expensive as a large single-family house.  Another way to increase income diversity is to allow “accessory dwelling units” otherwise known as granny flats, basement apartments or garage apartments. These granny flats help increase the affordability for the owner of the property by bringing in additional income, but also allow a much smaller, less expensive dwelling unit to exist in the same neighborhood. Without changing the character of neighborhoods, accessory units increase density and affordability.