An academic and community-based organization seeking to help people experience and improve open spaces in urban neighborhoods
Activities
Urban Resources Initiative (URI) is a community not-for-profit that works in conjunction with the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University. Its mission is to foster community-based land stewardship, promote environmental education, and advance the practice of urban forestry. Based in the belief that local citizens know an area best, and must be involved in its management, URI’s programs seek to increase citizens’ exposure to the environment, awareness or urban environmental issues, and capacity to take action in local neighborhoods.
Relevant Project(s)
URI's work is organized around several ongoing programs:
- Community Greenspaces. URI provides materials, training, and technical assistance to residents and community groups wishing to reclaim abandoned lots and create urban green spaces. While URI is happy to assist residents, projects must be conceived, created, maintained, and supported by the community itself. Evaluation of the program suggests that green spaces lead to increased neighborhood cohesiveness, character, and communication.
- Open Spaces as Learning Places is a youth environmental education program that focuses on urban ecology and exploring local neighborhoods. The program helps to foster a sense of place by introducing students to resources literally in their own backyards, and by giving them the tools to help care for those places.
- Informal charrettes periodically address urban planning challenges in New Haven’s neighborhoods, including neighborhood parks and other open spaces.
Relevant Methodologies
URI stresses the integration of the biophysical sciences with the social. URI works with local New Haven community groups and residents to replant, restore, and reclaim the urban environment. They seek out those areas traditionally seen as problems—abandon schoolyards, vacant lots, derelict buildings, and historically neglected areas on the city—and turn their rehabilitation into opportunities for the social and physical renewal of our community and environment.
URI has also pioneered interesting strategies for increasing participation and gaining acceptance in minority communities. Rather than inviting or encouraging citizens to come out to community meetings to give feedback, URI staff it in Laundromats, for example, where citizens are certain to go and likely to have time for talking. Rather than selecting communities and neighborhoods that need work, URI only works in areas that specifically ask for their help and commit to certain strategies for ongoing success.
Region
New Haven, CT
More Information
205 Prospect St.
New Haven, CT 06511
203-432-6570 (phone)