Experience Mill Creek: Bolstering Trail-Oriented Development
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Course Details
Cincinnati has nearly completed a 34-mile urban trail loop that will transform how people experience that great city. The last major segment to be built goes through eight historically disinvested neighborhoods eager for partnership and investment that will enhance residents’ daily lives. A coalition has formed to ensure that a strong vision with articulated values and preferred development programming is packaged and used to push for desired changes across the district.
Experience Mill Creek (EMC) is a campaign led by city, organizational, business owner, and resident leaders who understand the opportunities, barriers, and potential threats that can come with transformative development. Namely, welcoming new housing, commercial, and public-space development — and the new neighbors, employees, and visitors these efforts will bring — while ensuring that longtime community members have the opportunity to ride the wave. Panelists who represent that coalition discuss how EMC has navigated these waters, so familiar to planning professionals. They touch on ways to avoid planning fatigue, use best practices for working with a multi-committee project structure, effectively involve paid community ambassadors, and incorporate quick-build activations to create relationships and momentum for long-term implementation.
Learning Outcomes
- Incorporate a new approach to conducting district-scale vision setting, pre-development planning, and quick-build activations.
- Advocate for the value of a project brand as a means of building a campaign that reaches target audiences.
- Refer to several case studies that leverage investments in natural features and trails as a driver for placemaking and comprehensive, inclusive redevelopment.