A couple months ago
we wrote about honoring Sister Rosetta Tharpe in Yorktown, a community on the verge of rebound, and now the American Planning Association has awarded a 2012 National Planning Award for Yorktown's recently completed community-driven master plan Yorktown 2015: A Blueprint for Sustainability and Survival.
"Yorktown 2015 capitalized on the energy and creativity of Yorktown’s residents by engaging them and using their input to create an action plan," said Marie L. York, FAICP, APA Board Director and 2012 Awards Jury Co-Chair. "Despite the small size of the community, participation was overwhelming, with more than 260 Yorktown residents participating in surveys, meetings, and groups to help shape this plan."
In addition to robust traditional community outreach and engagement components, Yorktown 2015 participation was enabled through a more innovative method. Interface Studio, conceptualized, designed, and fabricated a storytelling booth--the Yorktown Chatter Box--that invited community members to step inside and speak into a soup can telephone [actually a functional audio recording device] to tell stories about their memories of Yorktown, share their hopes for the future of the neighborhood, and describe the characteristics of the neighborhood they feel would be most important to preserve.
Original source: American Planning Association, PA-Southeast Blog
Read the full story
here.