Community Workshop at the Sauganash Field House, July 2016
The Good City Group worked with local aldermanic offices (39th and 45th wards) on a series of design charrettes that engaged the community. Residents expressed their needs, shared the history of their neighborhoods, identified architectural assets and natural landscapes. They envisioned a series of pedestrian and bike routes leading from one train station to the other, and from one landmark to the next.
Shapiro Research Symposium at Archeworks, 2016
To be meaningful to the design community at large, theoretical research must be anchored in specific local investigation and expertise of local historians. Organized by Archeworks and the Earl and Brenda Shapiro Center for Research and Collaboration, the symposium took place at Archeworks and highlighted The Good City Group’s Last Mile Initiative towards a CONTINUOUS CITY. Grounded in history and in the analysis of cultural and environmental assets, for which we benefit from the expertise of such local historians as Ann Keating, the culmination of our initiative coincided with the 200th anniversary of the Indian Boundary Lines, northern and southern limits of the territory ceded by Native Americans to the United States in August 1816.
In this symposium with Ann Keating and Andrew Balster, the conversation was guided by two key questions: How can we identify and map—in both broad and granular ways—sets of interconnected issues to help us understand large urban systems and the opportunities they provide? How can we build on the strengths and assets in
our current systems, and also help innovators and change agents in community organizations and the public sector enhance and accelerate their work?
We explored the important relationship that exists between social infrastructure and the supporting infrastructural networks that are involved in city building—in short, the relationship between structure and agency.
