The Urban Open Space Foundation, the group behind the development of Madison's Central Park, is changing its name and has landed a contract with the U.S. Forest Service to help cities across the nation revitalize their urban cores.
The Center for Resilient Cities, as the group is now called, was renamed because it has a new focus on how to create environmental, economic and social benefits in depressed areas: Rather than creating "sustainable" cities, the group wants to help "redesign and rebalance cities" in a way that will help them address current problems and better anticipate future challenges as they develop, according to Heather Mann, executive director for the group.
"Resilience thinking is about measuring and aiding the ability of a system to bounce back," Mann said. She, along with former Madison Mayor Joe Sensenbrenner, who is Board President for the Center for Resilient Cities, met with The Capital Times editorial board on Monday.
The group, which has worked in both Milwaukee and New Orleans as well as Madison, caught the attention of the Forest Service's Urban and Community Forestry Program, which had been looking for a way to be better involved and relevant to populations in urban America.
Resilient Cities' role in the five-year contract is identifying ways that the Urban and Community Forestry Program can help local governments and private sector partners respond to climate change in their communities and identify future focus areas of urban forestry.
For four years, Resilient Cities has worked in Milwaukee's degraded Fond du Lac and North Avenue neighborhood, an area known for its high crime rate. The harsh landscape affords residents little opportunity for outdoor recreation and public gathering spaces.
With input from the neighborhood and groups such as the NAACP and Preserve Our Parks, Resilient Cities developed a green infrastructure plan for the area, incorporating community gardens, public art, a spray pool, bike racks, benches, a performance pavilion and redesigned playgrounds into the existing Greater Johnsons Park, with plans to add several new, smaller parks, improve stormwater runoff and plant trees, among other improvements.
The $5.6 million project will also lead to job creation, giving residents job training in park construction and urban landscape maintenance.
In their model, the community decides what is most important and valuable, and Resilient Cities' goal is to move projects forward through public and private partnerships.
Mann described their role as the "mortar that brought together the bricks."The Capital Times
