Apr 29, 20203 min read

Northview Rising's Initial Neighborhood Night

Introduction

The Kansas State Landscape Architecture program’s 3rd year students have been working alongside Northview Rising (NVR), a community led group, to bring solutions to the Northview neighborhood of Manhattan, Kansas to hear the communities wants and needs. Through this process both parties have reached out to the residents of Northview and organized an event titled “Neighborhood Nights”. The intent of this event is to interact directly with community members and create a social atmosphere for people to voice their thoughts about the neighborhood. This was also an opportunity for the K-State students to gather information and data that would ultimately inform future design proposals.

The LARCP (Landscape Architecture and Community Planning) students are proposing design solutions to help improve and bring progress to the Northview area that currently is in a food desert and faces a life expectancy issue of 10 years less than all other communities in Manhattan.

The Beginning

In a grass roots effort, our class was divided into teams to handle separate tasks in creating the setting for the Neighborhood Nights event. Gathering statistical and analytical data, our classroom sought out issues and setbacks the community was facing and proposed initial ideas. The next step was to engage with Northview Rising to see what current issues the people have been outspoken about. From these meetings the students began to brainstorm ideas on how to create solutions through design to help alleviate some stressors the Northview Community is facing.

Figure 1 Colwell, R. (2020). Class thinking of ideas. Retrieved from https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipPrHSGBKYXrQQ6lUebxmCA6ehwlz7tV71CWSc1QGSjJnPVSLsJCDFMfxVd-4JohuA/photo/AF1QipORqYGPhAZeDfqqlgL7yipEADMWebVsSEGdDGxg?key=Nnp6cWxPTlhMdzhNckxNbGVGTlJVVnVESTV

Figure 2 Colwell, R. (2020). Class explores options for area. Retrieved from https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipPrHSGBKYXrQQ6lUebxmCA6ehwlz7tV71CWSc1QGSjJnPVSLsJCDFMfxVd-4JohuA/photo/AF1QipNxk6pG0vW0lIlM9yCZj3vD9Nmk9LApIZT_xDal?key=Nnp6cWxPTlhMdzhNckxNbGVGTlJV

Neighborhood Night

Through canvassing, both students and community members were able to canvass throughout the Northview area to get the word out for the initial Neighborhood Night. An event in which people living in the neighborhood could bring their personal stories, and ideas for improving the neighborhood and be heard. Community opinions, stories and ideas were then recorded and allowed the class to input their needs.

Figure 3 Huang, X. (2020). Carson holds up flyers. Retrieved from https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipPrHSGBKYXrQQ6lUebxmCA6ehwlz7tV71CWSc1QGSjJnPVSLsJCDFMfxVd-4JohuA/photo/AF1QipPCL_CEcv-3Ldue5lT_JWYOkbP0F3YUvhX5QFz5?key=Nnp6cWxPTlhMdzhNckxNbGVGTlJVVnVESTVKeEp3

Figure 4 Colwell, R. (2020). Ayana Belk explains to resident of community the interactive board. Retrieved from https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipPrHSGBKYXrQQ6lUebxmCA6ehwlz7tV71CWSc1QGSjJnPVSLsJCDFMfxVd-4JohuA/photo/AF1QipMYvE3xWT6VH_qfzNx5tJkigXaQOtt-A6FxY

Figure 5 Colwell, R. (2020). Community Involvement. Retrieved from https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipPrHSGBKYXrQQ6lUebxmCA6ehwlz7tV71CWSc1QGSjJnPVSLsJCDFMfxVd-4JohuA/photo/AF1QipMdDWLXU4apEId3PtAyFXwx-ZgCL4IwGCMEUTHh?key=Nnp6cWxPTlhMdzhNckxNbGVGTlJVVnVESTVKe

This process allowed the members of the community to have a direct impact on the future progression of these design projects for the better of the community as a whole. This was accomplished by the class creating a setting in which stations were made to collect vital information via physical interactive boards with questions and a digital station for members to do a survey.

Digital Survey Station

One of the interactive stations we had was the digital station in which our class had come up with questions to ask community members questions about there area that could be collected discretely. Some of these questions included.

· If there were healthy and fresh foods immediately available to you?

· Do you believe your access to healthy and fresh food is adequate?

· Where you go to access fresh and healthy food

· What type of transportation is utilized when getting this food