After years of decline in the United States and abroad, cities are experiencing renewal, driven in part by the private sector. At the same time, many low-income, minority, and migrant communities lack adequate housing, infrastructure, public services, and economic opportunities. To truly deliver on the promise of the city, we must take advantage of every opportunity to create vibrant, inclusive communities for all residents.
FOSTERING INCLUSIVE COMMUNITIES
> COMMUNITY INNOVATION IN THE COLOMBIAN PACIFIC
The Colombian Pacific Region is one of the most ecologically diverse areas in the world, with extraordinary natural, human and cultural resources. In 2013, DUSP faculty and staff initiated a multi-year engagement that included piloting the ‘Pacific Power’ Community Innovation School with a group of 60 Afro and Indigenous leaders. The program supports networks of leaders exploring critical questions of economic development, political mobilization, and multi-sector collaboration on the subnational scale. Currently, efforts are focused on the incorporation of Afro Colombian proposals in the national peace process. J. Phil Thompson
> CONFLICT AND NEIGHBORLINESS IN POST-GENOCIDE RAWANDA
This project focuses on international development in the context of post-conflict and post-disaster rebuilding. Specifically it explores how the government employed architecture and planning to conceptualize peace, manage conflict, and define citizenship in Rwanda; and how rural residents experience these projects and live together, side by side, after genocide. The work will substantiate the value of a “spatial turn” in peace and conflict studies and will offer original research on modes of post-genocide repair at the juncture of neighborly interactions and national policy. Delia Wendel
DEPARTMENT OF URBAN STUDIES AND PLANNING MIT
> LIVING WAGE CALCULATOR
In many American communities, families working in low-wage jobs make insufficient income to live locally given the local cost of living. Recently, in a number of high-cost communities, community organizers and citizens have successfully argued that the prevailing wage offered by the public sector and key businesses should reflect a wage rate required to meet minimum standards of living. Therefore we have developed a living wage calculator to estimate the cost of living in your community or region. The calculator lists typical expenses, the living wage and typical wages for the selected location. Amy Glasmeier
> BUILDING CAPACITY FOR COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
Community-based organizations are expanding their missions to include green development and energy efficiency, job creation, political organizing, asset building, and the execution of complex real estate deals. Working in partnership with public and nonprofit partners, faculty and students at DUSPMIT build planning capacity at the local level, through skills workshops and the development of interactive software tools to help community groups find and use data. Ezra Glenn