Case Studies

Project for Public Spaces has announced that it is now accepting applications for the 2016 Southwest Airlines Heart of the Community grant program. Southwest Airlines connects people to the places that mean the most to them. In 2014, Southwest launched Heart of the Community to encourage more connections on the ground and to help residents feel a sense of ownership in the places they share. This community-driven program has supported the activation of public spaces in cities across the country, from Portland, Maine, to San Antonio, Texas.

CCLR responds to Pacific Standard article "Mental Maps and the Neuroscience behind Neighborhood Blight" -

Whether or not we realize it, city blocks, districts and neighborhoods are not concretely articulated land areas in an urban fabric — people interact with and define the boundaries of places differently, and use varying metrics to identify them. All these facets we associate with places and spaces — how we draw our “mental maps” — have proven to be extremely revealing in understanding why some neighborhoods prosper, and others continue to be magnets for socio-economic decline and blight. CCLR posits, that among the numerous other socio-economic development tactics we use to revitalize and redevelop the neighborhoods, main streets and downtowns of our declining cities, we also need to “hack the mental map” and reverse the “psychological branding” of blighted communities.

The Loma Prieta Earthquake, which shook the city at magnitude 6.9 for just 15 seconds on October 17th, 1989, tragically killed 67 people, 42 of whom were on the Embarcadero Freeway when a portion of it collapsed. The removal of the freeway reshaped San Francisco’s waterfront, and as we listened to Jackie reflect on her newly acquired knowledge about this piece of recent history, we thought that her words (and her thoughts on transportation and sustainability) were worth sharing. Following is an interview between Jackie and CCLR staff.

On July 8th, 2015, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker Announces Designation of 12 New Manufacturing Communities Under the Investing in Manufacturing Communities Partnership Program.

EPA is releasing reports from two technical assistance projects in the San Francisco Bay Area, one on integrating resilience to natural hazards into land use planning and the other on planning for district-scale energy. Both describe processes and strategies that other communities could use as models for their own efforts.

I am working on a project involving the remediation of brownfields and vacant industrial parks.  I was wondering about the details of capping contaminated soil mounds.  Does there need to be a concrete or clay base layer under the mound of contaminated soil to prevent any seeping of the toxins?  Or, can the soil mound just be capped?  If the mound consists of only contaminated soils (relocated from other areas of the site), does the mound have to include a gas collection well?

- Michael, Architecture student

I’m working on developing an affordable housing project in the bay area and the city wants me to assess the impact of existing air quality on my project’s future residents as part of my CEQA review. Is this necessary?

I’ve heard of some projects that want to put solar power on brownfield site. Why would we want to do this, and is it even possible? Have any projects succeeded so far?

I’ve heard that some cleanups of landfills and other toxic sites just put a cap over the contamination! Is this safe? Shouldn’t all the hazardous waste be removed instead?