Capstone Studio Project: Visioning Smoketown Greenspaces

On this edition of Sustainability Now!, your host Justin Mog, talks with Grant List, a brand new graduate of the University of Louisville’s Masters programs in both Urban Planning and Civil Engineering.

Grant participated in the Urban Planning program’s Spring 2018 Capstone Studio Project: "Visioning a Greenspace Network with Smoketown YOUTH! Planning urban landscapes with a neighborhood's youngest users." The Capstone Studio projects are developed by the students and faculty of the University of Louisville’s Master of Urban Planning program. The projects cover a wide range of topics and locations and involve the students working in teams to address real planning problems under the guidance of faculty members. Its central purpose is to give students the opportunity to integrate what they have learned during their studies while solving real world urban planning issues.

Smoketown is an urban core neighborhood in Louisville. As one of the first black-founded communities that still exists in Louisville today, Smoketown is home to a young, proud, majority African-American population. Residents have fought to make neighborhood housing, community facilities, and educational opportunities available to all. And, with a recent neighborhood success through community activism, Smoketown gained an additional 5 acres of unplanned greenspace in their neighborhood. The students engaged sixth graders at Meyzeek Middle School to develop youth-centered plans for what could become of these new public parks.

Explore their beautiful, information-rich story map online at: www.arcgis.com/apps/Cascade/inde…4b5df0ab0202275e8

More information about UofL’s Urban Planning Capstone Projects is at louisville.edu/upa/programs/mup/capstone-course

Sustainability Now! airs on FORward Radio, 106.5fm, WFMP-LP Louisville, every Monday at 6pm and repeats Tuesdays at 12am and 10am. Find us at forwardradio.org

Source: Interview: UofL Masters Student Grant List - Visioning Smoketown Greenspaces (Sustainability Now!, FORward Radio, May 21, 2018)