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C03 - Making Ourselves, Making Westwood: An Urban Neighborhood Revitalization & Community Project
In historically-disinvested communities where neighborhoods are most often in need of revitalization, understanding communal trauma and social isolation are crucial to the health of a CBNR project (Taylor & de la Sablonnière, 2013).
C03 - Making Ourselves, Making Westwood: An Urban Neighborhood Revitalization & Community Project
Mentor: Andrew Busch, Ph.D.
Urban revitalization is a complex problem that architects, city planners, and urban designers deal with regularly. Community-led approaches are often appealing, yet often flicker out before they have reached their objectives. Previous studies show that lack of engagement with community-based neighborhood revitalization (CBNR) from urban residents is one of the reason that CBNR interventions don’t happen or ultimately fail (Rupp et al., 2020). In historically-disinvested communities where neighborhoods are most often in need of revitalization, understanding communal trauma and social isolation are crucial to the health of a CBNR project (Taylor & de la Sablonnière, 2013).
My social action project is an exhibit-meets-community project that seeks to educate, unify, and inspire Westwood residents of Dayton, Ohio, to advocate for their community’s revitalization needs through the Westwood Neighborhood Association. The interactive storytelling designed into this exhibit bolsters community participation in CBNR by creating a sense of unity and developing a presence in, identity within, and attachment to physical space.