Utilians past and present speaking at ABX 2019

Director of Urban Design and Planning Nupoor Monani and former Utile Urban Planner Cory Berg will present Wicked Awesome Cities: A Toolkit for Place-Based Strategies in Massachusetts Cities and Towns at the 2019 ArchitectureBoston Expo (ABX) Thursday, 11/7 10:30am-12pm at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.  If you attend the session be sure to let us know via social media!

The Wicked Awesome Cities Toolkit provides a menu of strategies that take a place-based approach to community revitalization and reinvestment. While many towns and cities in Massachusetts view their challenges as unique, issues such as main street and downtown business revitalization, walkability, and infill development are common to most. The Toolkit does not present a one-size-fits-all solution for these issues; rather, it offers a set of solutions that can be applied across a number of contexts and adapted to meet the needs of each municipality. 

More and more towns and cities in the Commonwealth are opting for a spatial, incremental approach to planning that provides flexibility and actionable outcomes. Tangible interventions within the urban realm can create a critical mass of activity and cause spillover effects in neighboring areas. Through design-based efforts concentrated in compact areas, the Toolkit offers catalytic solutions that provide more “bang-for-your-buck” than traditional comprehensive planning.