Building Civic Trust and Economic Recovery through Public Space • Guest: Alexa Bush, Detroit, USA скачать в хорошем качестве

Building Civic Trust and Economic Recovery through Public Space • Guest: Alexa Bush, Detroit, USA

At a time of increasing loneliness and mistrust, as well as rising economic uncertainty since the global pandemic, public space provides a unique opportunity to address both challenges at once. This presentation looks at recent projects in Detroit, using the city as a case study to explore how public space improvements, designed and implemented with communities, have brought people together, encouraged collaboration and civic engagement, and supported the city's ongoing recovery. Having just experienced its second, consecutive year of population growth since the 1950s, public spaces are supporting residential densification, increasing trust in local government, and bolstering vitality and street life from the downtown core through the city's neighborhoods. The presentation includes both examples of successful projects from the scale of the civic center to the neighborhood park, as well as a metrics framework and door-to-door resident survey that has tracked changes in trust and public perception since project inception. Alexa Bush is passionate about creating equitable and resilient cities. She is the Director of the Planning & Development Department for the City of Detroit, managing a team responsible for planning and implementing neighborhood and economic development citywide. She rejoined the department after three years working in philanthropy at the Kresge Foundation, funding public space, climate-focused, and equitable economic recovery projects in Detroit. Previously, Alexa spent six years working at the city, helping restructure the department after Detroit’s municipal bankruptcy and leading work through the Strategic Neighborhood Fund, a multisector initiative that brought over $140M in community investment since 2015. Alexa is a licensed landscape architect and received her bachelor's degree from Harvard and her MLA from the University of Virginia. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Landscape Architecture Foundation and City Parks Alliance.