Planning in the Shadows: Promoting Equitable Development through Partnerships Involving Anchor Institutions and Community-Based Organizations

March 11, 2009 7:00pm, Ellice Theatre and Café, 587 Ellice Avenue

In many North American cities, poor and working class communities are often found living in the shadows of universities and medical centres. In efforts to improve the quality of life for local residents, community-based organizations often find themselves forging relationships with these powerful local institutions, whose experience with collaborative approaches to planning, design, and development is quite limited. The use of these new partnerships to achieve urban revitalization goals is necessitated by cuts in domestic social spending and the devolution of responsibility for programs, within a framework of global forces that emphasizes economic development.

Presenter Ken Reardon will discuss the experience of a number of community/university development partnerships in the US that have managed, often through significant struggle, to achieve more equitable forms of inner city revitalization through an empowerment approach to community development.

Sponsored by the Spence Neighbourhood Association, West Broadway Development Corporation, WCWRC, Friend of the Sherbrook Pool, Planners Network Manitoba and the University of Manitoba.