New Market District Brand Unveiled Iin Downtown York

Elsie Smith has only called York home for a few years. But her short time here has been filled and fulfilled with the energy of downtown York.

Smith’s design was chosen by Downtown Inc as the new brand image of the Market District of downtown York.

After years of driving through York on her motorcycle, Smith was attracted to retire here by the architecture, industrial art focus and growing energy, she said.

Smith wanted to be in the middle of it all, so she bought a home on Market Street.

Read more:  http://www.ydr.com/business/ci_22882156/new-market-district-brand-unveiled-downtown-york

Main Street USA

This is an except from an article that appeared on MSN today about urban renewal, vibrant downtowns and what makes them tick.  This particular section I really liked:

Main Street
Columbus, Miss.

Huck’s Place in Columbus, Miss., occupies pride of place on Fifth Street South, one of the major streets in a town whose planners saw the value in housing units above downtown businesses. (Courtesy Main Street Columbus)

Look closely at the urban-renewal renaissance and you’ll discover certain key characteristics like terrace seating, broad sidewalks and street art. While each of these helps establish the appeal of the streetscape, perhaps the most important component is experienced by a very few visitors: second floor residential dwellings. The planners in Columbus understood the importance of a neighborhood that doesn’t roll up its sidewalks at night, renovating more upper-floor housing units than any other Mississippi community. Not bad for a city of just under 26,000 people. The celebrations begin with Market Street Festival in early May and the Hitching Lot Farmers’ Market is open three days a week. The musically inclined gather for Afternoon and Noon Tunes at various times of the year, and The Columbus Riverwalk, a citizen’s initiative, recently entered its second decade.

To read the rest of this fascinating article, click here:

http://local.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=28511885

Lancaster City Hires New Arts Manager – The Goal: Make Lancaster “A Significant Arts Destination”

Lancaster Mayor Rick Gray has made the arts part of Lancaster City’s newly revised strategic plan.  Lancaster is to become a significant arts destination.  Evidence of the arts momentum in Lancaster is the hugely successful First Friday’s and the increasing amount of public art appearing throughout the city.  The goal is for much more. 

Making Lancaster more aesthetically pleasing will enhance the quality of life for city residents and give tourists another reason to come to Lancaster County; other than riding around in tour buses staring at the Amish, eating at Shady Maple and shopping at the Rockvale Outlets.  A trip to Lancaster County is not complete until one thoroughly immerses one’s self in the historic City of Lancaster (i am a former city resident who walked to Central Market to grocery shop every week).

So how does one go about turning this vision into a goal and then into a reality?  First, one gets a $200,000 grant from the Lancaster County Community Foundation that will pay the Arts Manager’s salary for three years.  Secondly, find a great candidate like John Lustig and hire him away from Indiana State University where he was the Curator and Director of the university’s permanent collection (valued at $45 million with 7,000 pieces of art).  Finally, support him and allow him to do his job (which by all accounts will happen).

John is a doer.  On his first day, John wrote up a letter of intent for a grant from National Endowment of the Arts.  The deadline was midnight and John worked until 9:30 p.m. to make sure Lancaster would be in the running for this funding.  Impressive first day!

Lustig will be jumping on an arts bandwagon that is already going strong in Lancaster.  His role will be to kick things up a notch and bring more community attention to the arts scene.  John will also be learning what other cities are doing to fund their arts programs and report back his findings.  This information will help city officials find creative ways to fund public art projects without reinventing the wheel or breaking the bank.

John is excited about finding an iconic piece of art that will come to be identified with Lancaster (like the LOVE statue is to Philly, the “arch” to St. Louis or the Statue of Liberty with NYC.)  Public art is a very broad term that can be applied to more than sculpture and murals.  Lustig also considers things like architecture, design, commercial signs and audio clips played in a public space as art.  Creativity exists in all things man-made.  Maybe he has a twin brother who would like a job in Pottstown!?!

Just another reason to heart Lancaster!

Pittsburgh Building Comprehensive Growth Plan With Participation From Thousands Of Residents

Image via Wikipedia

Pittsburgh is establishing a comprehensive growth plan to “right size” the city after years of population loss.  Year one has already been completed with thousands of residents taking part in helping to shape a way forward for Pennsylvania’s second largest city.

This plan, which is expected to be completed in 2014, will focus on the following areas in order:

Open spaces and parks – wrapping up

Cultural heritage and preservation – up and running

The next ten have yet to be started:

Transportation

Public art

Design

Energy

City-owned buildings

Infrastructure

Economic development

Housing

Education

Zoning

Land Use

The Pittsburgh planning department is enthusiastically seeking participation from city residents!  The cost of this long-range plan is $2.3 million dollars.  Cities are not required to submit comprehensive plans but they can opt to do so.  Only a handful of cities have done this.  Pittsburgh is once again being a leading innovator in their approach to managed growth and sustainability.

These components were not accidentally chosen.  Open space is first because vacant land use will influence every other category on the list.  Pittsburgh has 5,500 acres of open space.   Half is parks and 14,000 vacant lots make up the rest.  Pittsburgh realizes that green space has an impact on property values.

These meetings last two hours and are held on various nights and in several locations around Pittsburgh to maximize citizen involvement.

Pittsburgh is consistently ranked as one of America’s most livable cities.