Community Engagement

Class Minutes

1-18-2012

Grant Summary on North Limestone: Issues with water quality

Needs Identified:

Immediate reduction in stormwater runoff and thereby pollution

A plan for improving the stormwater runoff and sewer system developed by environmental experts that we as neighbors can pursue with further grant funding

Expert advice about stormwater system improvement

Support and experience in engaging and educating the community

Solutions:

Installation of 30 rain barrels with soaker hoses to reduce runoff and use water effectively

Establishment of 40 native species plants in neighborhood rain gardens and/or other residential/business landscaping.

Professional stormwater planning, design, and management consulting services from EcoGro

Professional evaluation, design, and consulting to create a detailed project-oriented sustainability plan for the area of North Limestone and Loudon area.

Project manager with local marketing business as partner to maintain effective communication with residents

Community tours of progress (including rain gardens)

Goals of a neighborhood association: Deal with environmental, economic, housing, and landscaping issues

Rich Schein:

Schein was inspired to explore Lexington’s landscape after moving here from reading the book The Urban Frontier by Richard Wade The book explains how agriculture and urbanization grew up hand-in-hand, and describes slavery in Lexington, KY.

Cultural Landscapes….

Record of our urban past

Hold individual and collective identities

Make urban processes seem normal and natural

Allow us to change urban processes

Ways to look at landscape:

Landscape history: Who made it and why? When did they make it?

What the landscape means: to identity- to the individual and the society

The landscape as facilitator/mediator: particular political, social, economic, and cultural intention and debate

Landscape as discourse materialized

Landscape as identity and belonging: Cadentown, Lyric Theater, stone fences, etc.

Thoroughbred Park: Isaac Murphy Memorial Garden

Class, race, and gender are ALWAYS a part of the landscape.

Legacies:

Hampton Court on 3^rd Street: gate locked shut with Hampton Court on one side and Smith Town (black community) on the other side.

Legacies in landscape can physically affect the way we view things.

Lexington Developing Urban Form:

Original plat and “unsegregation”: Lexington was a grid with lots of lots. Homes from this period had slave quarters- blacks and whites lived side by side in close proximity

Alley life as segue to: Began the separation of whites and blacks. Black people often lived in alleys off of main streets. Big/small houses. Brick/wood houses.

The “towns” and agglomeration: Lexington by 20^th century was about 87% white and 13% black. Neighborhoods where free slaves gathered became known as “towns” and were mostly located on the outskirts of the city.

Formal Apartheid: Jim Crow (1907) Whites are no longer OK with living in close proximity to blacks. Do not want alleys with black populations behind their homes

Clearance, renewal, gentrification

The macro segregated city

Check out Ed Franklin’s dolls for inspiration on his Facebook page!