Stories

How have Amesbury, MA, and other small towns reinvented themselves for the future and turned once-faded histories into a source of local pride?

Projects that have the greatest impact are those that reflect your town’s vision and values. That’s easy to say, but it takes work to understand what your community cares most about.

Visions are strongest when they reflect what people care most about in their towns – specific and widely-shared community values.

The Blairsville Your Town Workshop was held in August 2006. Now, more than six years later, they're looking back on the dramatic changes that have occurred around town.

In a special guest post, the Orton Family Foundation's Ariana McBride answers the question: what can you do to help find a balance between community wisdom and design & planning professionals in your community’s rural design project?

Rural design involves the planning and manipulation of the environment for the betterment of the community. Design is a process that involves brainstorming ideas, developing plans and proposed designs, and implementation of a project.

In dozens of communities across the country, CIRD workshops have helped rural communities use design to solve challenges like improving walkability, curbing sprawl, and attracting tourists by enhancing local heritage.

We have had a whirlwind of a year at CIRD! We held four fantastic workshops that were catalytic events for each of the host communities, launched the rural-design.org website with an extensive set of Resources for Rural Communities, and held four informative and inspiring capacity building conference calls with our partners at the Orton Family Foundation and Community Matters.

With funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Federal Highway Administration, the Federal Transportation Authority, and the Driggs Urban Renewal Agency, the City of Driggs Idaho (pop. 1,660) plans to transform over 13,000 square feet of public space in its city center...

Travel teaches you many things, not the least of which is that the world doesn’t have to be ugly. I first learned this lesson while serving in the U.S. Army in Germany during the 1970s. Heidelberg, where I lived, was clean, compact, and dripping with history. The town center was packed with shops and sidewalk cafes...