CSTC Welcomes Three New Interns:Rachel McKinley, Chelsea Pierce, and Brad Mallette! Our current Architecture Interns include: Danielle Glass, Eric Lynn, Vanessa Robinson, and Mike Varhalla Our current Business Associate Assistants include: Shelby Cook and Lauren Vowell |
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A busy summer for the CSTC...
This summer, the CSTC will be working on projects in Fulton, Greenwood,
Laurel, New Albany, and Smithville, Mississippi. Check our website for
updates.
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Association for Community Design 2012 Conference
CSTC Director John Poros will speak at a panel presentation as part of the
Association of Community Design (ACD) 2012 Annual Conference in Salt Lake City
on June 8-10 moderated by James Wheeler, President of the ACD. Prof. Poros will
speak on rural design as a new design discipline. |
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American Planning Association 2012 Conference
CSTC Director John Poros attended the American Planning Association 2012
National Planning Conference, April 14 - 17 in Los Angeles California. As part
of the conference, Prof. Poros participated in the Small Town and Rural Planning
Division Meeting. |
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MSU Students Make Rebuilding Presentations to Smithville OfficialsStarkville-- The same day the town of Smithville joined together to light 16 Christmas trees honoring those who died in April's deadly tornado, a few residents visited the Mississippi State campus to collect ideas about the town's future. Read more. |
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New Project Book!!CREATE Common Ground: Corinth, MS
Get your copy at Lulu.com |
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Smithville to Get Ideas of RebuildingStarkville-- As students wind up classes at Mississippi State University, residents and officials from Smithville were to be on campus, checking out possible designs for a new municipal complex in the town devastated by a tornado in April. Read more. |
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Fulton Park and Pavilion In 2008, Fulton was
awarded a grant of $1.7 million from Michael Waldorf and Julie Grimes
Waldorf, a Fulton native, to fund a park in downtown Fulton. While of a
much larger scale and scope than the park conceived of by the CREATE
Common Ground class, the park was sited where the class proposed that a
downtown park be placed. The park as built is centered around a large
sculpture/water feature. A performance pavilion faces into a plaza at
the front of the park to accommodate large events. At the rear of the
park is an extensive playground area as well as a picnic area. The Carl
Small Town Center is excited to have been part of this process in a
small way and will continue to help communities in northeast Mississippi
through the CREATE Common Ground process to envision their future.
Good evening... Class of 2012, faculty, families, and friends. It is an absolute honor to address you today. However, I feel fairly unqualified to be your graduation speaker: I was
not a great student during my time here. I am not really a good "adult,"
either, as I have no savings account or long-term health insurance.
Also, I am not primarily interested in addressing you as architects or
designers this evening, but first and foremost as citizens, and only
then, as members of a professional community. Read more. 05/13/12
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“I feel like whenever I talk to artists these days, I should be
apologizing,” says Kevin Stolarick, Research Director for the Martin
Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of
Management. To most in the arts community, Stolarick is better known as
Richard Florida’s longtime right-hand man and research collaborator on
his bestselling book, The Rise of the Creative Class.
Stolarick, who first met Florida just after the academic had cashed the
first check for the advance from Basic Books, proceeds to recount how
the book’s success led to an explosion of interest from mayors all
around the country wanting to redefine their cities as welcoming meccas
for Florida’s new Starbucks-drinking, jeans-wearing idea people.
Unfortunately, the mayors’ collective interpretation of the lessons from
Florida’s book boiled down to, “all we need is to get us some gays and artists and a bike path or two, and our problems will be solved! The problem,” Stolarick tells us, a decade after The Rise of the Creative Class’s publication, “is that it’s a trap.” Read more. 05/14/12
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Do local and state officials tune out when you try to talk to them about
bicycling? Are they unconvinced by arguments about public health,
transportation options, or clean air? Do business leaders send you
packing when you suggest building new bike lanes and bike parking,
fearing that the loss of car parking will keep customers away? Read more. 03/23/12
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Since the nation's first-ever experiment to gauge the impact
of concentrated investment in biking and walking infrastructure in America was
launched in 2007, lawmakers and transportation planners have been awaiting this
moment - the publication of the project data evaluating the real impact of this
infrastructure on communities. Read more. 05/01/12
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Poor Atlanta often stands in as the model for how cities ought not
to grow. The place is sprawling and congested and weirdly linear. Its
skyline has, from afar, what looks like three disconnected focal points,
which rise from the neighborhoods of Downtown, Midtown and Buckhead,
nearly eight miles apart. Just about all of the most important
Interstates in the South converge on the city, bisecting many of its
communities. And the local metro system – with four lines covering
roughly two routes – looks on a map like the toenail clippings from the London Underground. Read more. 04/18/12
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How can smaller communities achieve and sustain economic growth, even
in the face of national economic volatility and companies exporting
jobs overseas? According to Fourth Economy,
an economic development consultancy, the key ingredients are
"investment, talent, sustainability, place, and diversity." And to make
its point, the Pittsburgh-based group is ranking how various-sized
communities are performing against those criteria. Read more. 04/16/12
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NO ONE loves a parking lot. In her song “Big Yellow Taxi,” Joni
Mitchell laments, “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” The
parking lot is the antithesis of nature’s fields and forests, an ugly
reminder of the costs of our automobile-oriented society. But as long
as we prefer to get around by car (whether powered by fossil fuel, solar energy or hydrogen), the parking lot is here to stay. It’s hard to imagine an alternative. Read more. 03/25/12
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Recently, Japan and Korea have begun to express deep concerns about the “ability of the United States to address profound problems in its political and economic system.” This is not just about the “business cycle.” Our key Asian allies are
wondering whether we’re even able to see the gathering storm on the
horizon, much less respond. Their worry is shared by many of our own
national security leaders. In the midst of the great recession, Adm.
Mike Mullen, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, asked two
officers within his personal staff to explore the question of “grand
strategy.” They recommended the development of a “national strategy of
sustainability.” It’s good advice. Read more. 03/20/12
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