In Akron, OH, work is underway to redefine the footprint of the city’s many neighborhoods.
“What we’re doing is looking at
all of our city neighborhoods — Akron has 25 semi-official neighborhoods, with downtown being one of them,” says Jason Segedy, the city’s director of planning and urban development.
The project is essential, Segedy says, because properly drawn and named neighborhoods should reflect what residents know to be true, but also because city officials can then use those neighborhoods to better gauge what’s happening in smaller segments of the 62-square-mile city, and to figure out how best to serve each individual area.
To gather input, the city created MyAkronNeighborhood.com, and invited people to visit and redraw the city.
The Downtown Akron Partnership is carefully watching the results of this work.
“To the larger community, and to people from outside our city, downtown boundaries do not look the same,” says Suzie Graham, president and CEO of the Partnership. “Any time you are approaching the urban core, you say you are going downtown. We understand that while our work sometimes centers on that [Special Improvement District] boundary, we are influenced, and we influence, the work that goes on outside of those borders.”
The full article appeared in our print edition. To always get the full story, read Downtown Idea Exchange.
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