Blog
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City R&D for Chattanooga Monday, August 09, 2010
We’re pleased to announce that on August 20, Chattanooga will play a part in City R&D, a national project sponsored by Los Angeles-based GOOD Magazine and inspired by Chattanooga’s rich history of civic innovation.
Chattanooga’s City R&D event is an all-day charrette (something Chattanoogans can apparently concoct in their sleep) facilitated by CreateHere and composed of local multi-disciplinary professionals, civic leaders, and stakeholders gathering to tackle challenges associated with the city’s urban, built environment. The end-goal is reinvention and development (R and D)—specifically, a new way of thinking about multimodal transportation in Chattanooga and the issue of connectivity between areas of commerce and culture.
With the addition of industry to the city, Chattanooga will soon face a new set of environmental challenges. In consideration of new jobs, City R&D will address multimodal transportation between downtown Chattanooga and Enterprise South, an issue that has been the topic of many local conversations.
In May of this year, Josh McManus, co-founder and creative strategist at CreateHere, applied for City R&D through GOOD Magazine. “Because of the timeliness of this opportunity, the question City R&D will answer for Chattanooga is one of connectivity,” he said. “How can we connect the downtown urban core with this rapidly emerging industry center of Enterprise South in a way that capitalizes on the rich history and environmental assets of our area?”
This question has attracted the attention of many organizations and local figures, providing City R&D with partnerships in Chattanooga and beyond. CreateHere’s partners include AIGA, The American Institute of Architects, The Benwood Foundation, the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce, Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Association, the City of Chattanooga, Hamilton County, and The Lyndhurst Foundation.
“City R&D is an important opportunity to stimulate growth both economically and culturally,” said Councilman Peter Murphy, one of the many city leaders participating in the August 21 event. “With new growth, Chattanooga is going to see opportunities that didn’t exist before. Those opportunities will stimulate new interaction and relationship-building between diverse people and groups.”
By the end of City R&D, participating parties will have explored existing and emerging ideas for multimodal transportation between downtown Chattanooga and Enterprise South in the form of a map depicting personal, professional, and environmental assets. This map will help facilitate powerful new partnerships.
The City R&D summit will require its strong coalition of diverse participants to go the extra mile in establishing actions (not plans) that correspond to the multimodal transportation challenge. “Reinvention and development are vital,” says Josh McManus, “but implementation is just as crucial.”
For more information about City R&D and CreateHere, email info [at] createhere [dot] org or visit CreateHere.org.
