Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

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  • Federal Tax Credits and Local Dollars Keeping Akron Downtown Lively

    The Akron Community Revitalization Fund has already invested in the development of downtown Akron, a city once known for rubber manufacturing but now working to redefine itself. The revolving loan fund is comprised of funding from grant-making organizations, banks, and a New Markets Tax Credit. It aims to jumpstart more private investment into the city, including Northside Marketplace, a new hotel, and office space.

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  • The Mundane Joys of Playing a Bus Simulator

    Bus Simulator 18 is an online game that was released by a Germany company, and it helps players grapple with the challenges of operating a public bus system. Players run the bus company and need to make money while following traffic laws and helping users get from place to place. In America, where buses are not the most popular mode of transportation, the game is “an ideal look at how cities can appreciate the bus, how to love it so the system can realize its full potential.”

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  • Always Under Construction

    To resolve road construction communications with frustrated drivers, the New Orleans government developed RoadWork NOLA - an app that showed planned road construction. Unfortunately, no one was using it. Instead of giving up on their idea of a solution, they decided to embark on a plan to make it better through project iteration and human-centered design.

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  • How two Belgian cities turned their pavements into playgrounds

    Urban planners in Belgium are creating play spaces, known as the “speelweefselplan,” to give children more room to be outside. The design process includes asking schoolchildren about their routes to and from school, and then planners map out ways to make those routes more interactive. As cities grow and traditional parks are limited, this model shows a way that cities can continue to be welcoming for children.

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  • Reviving the City: How an Asphalt Plant Turned Into a Public Park

    By participating in the decision-making process, Mexico City residents successfully convinced the government to build a public park instead of an office development. The Parque Imán is 2.4 hectares, includes 163 trees, and the green space can potentially benefit up to 200,000 residents of some city boroughs. While there are some concerns about the soil quality in the park due to the adjacent asphalt plant, the park shows how participation from residents and transparency from the government allowed the public space to be built.

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  • Youth prisons are standing empty, but are a huge opportunity

    Across the country municipalities are repurposing former juvenile detention centers as juvenile incarceration rates have declined and remaking them as places of healing. Each community is different in its approach, with some even knocking down the buildings to start anew, but the Urban Institute found that successful transitions had several core strategies in common, including seeking input from local community members and from those who had been incarcerated in the facilities.

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  • Black Entrepreneurs Lead the Charge in Baltimore's Economic Renewal

    The #CommunityTakeBackChallenge in Baltimore “aims to inspire Baltimoreans to revitalize neighborhoods by pooling resources to acquire neglected city-owned and privately owned properties.” This initiative, along with CityWide Youth Development, is part of a wave of Black-led projects to redevelop the city. By training youth, redeveloping vacant properties, and creating new community spaces, these entrepreneurs are creating new opportunities for city residents.

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  • Transforming plastic waste into paving stones

    After realizing that the accumulation of plastic bags was a becoming a devastating issue for the environment, a student from Morocco decided to take action by combining his concern with his passion for robotics and science. The outcome was the creation of eco-friendly paving stones made out of a mixture of discarded plastic, sand, and concrete.

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  • Helping Nigerians move from the slums to affordable green homes of their own

    Comprehensive Design Services (CDS) is a Nigeria-based company that uses traditional Nigerian architectural techniques and Bio-Climatic Design to build housing that is both affordable and green. This approach, which they hope to expand to the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa, is making a dent in the growing population relegated to slums and poor housing conditions in the face of rapid urbanization.

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  • Cities are getting more crowded: better design could stop violence

    Researchers found that more greenery in urban spaces reduces crime and this idea of combatting crime with good design is part of a discipline called Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design, or CPTED. It spread around the world, but there also downsides. A new generation of CPTED advocates are expanding the field to consider social factors underlying crime and engage with local communities when designing projects because just discouraging crime is not enough to make spaces inviting.

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