A Study of Community Engagement in the Collaborative Design Process of the Pilot Green Infrastructure Design in Downtown Arlington, TX

Joowon Im (University of Texas at Arlington)

Urban sprawl entails an unsafe environment for pedestrians due to increased use of vehicles with roadway expansion and water pollution and higher temperature due to an excessive amount of impervious surfaces. These issues in Arlington also entails lack of pedestrian-friendly environment, which might have eventually led to a lack of recognition and utilization of Downtown Arlington. Concerning its sustainable future, one ofthe effective approaches to address the problems is utilizing a green infrastructure plan, which is an affordable and sustainable development strategy. Unfortunately, Arlington is behind in pursuing green infrastructure approaches and it can be compared to leading cities of its application, such as New York (NY) and Portland (OR). One of the main challenges to face when developing the green infrastructure plan is the multiple stakeholders’ (e.g. political leaders, agency staff, developers, landscapers, and others, including the public) lack of understanding and awareness about the green infrastructure.

The study aims to measure the effectiveness of community involvement in the process of planning and design of a pilot green infrastructure plan that will be conducted by the author. And the process will help the author to develop an effective pilot green infrastructure plan (focusing on selected streets) by conducting a collaborative design process in Downtown Arlington.

The procedure of the project has a combination of research and creative activity components to enhance the result of the project. It entails community design workshop with target subjects, the members of the community in the downtown area that includes an educational session to learn about green infrastructure, presentation of the new green infrastructure design, and small group discussion on the design and sustainable design application for the downtown area. After the workshop, pre- and post-survey will be conducted to measure the effectiveness of the community engagement in the green infrastructure planning process.