HISTORY

The Urban Places Project has worked primarily in Springfield, Holyoke, Pittsfield, and Chicopee in western Massachusetts. These once thriving mill towns have all lost manufacturing jobs in recent years. The neighborhoods in which UPP has worked have poverty rates ranging from 20 to 64 percent. However, these cities and neighborhoods are strategically located at the center of the Pioneer Valley and Berkshire Region and possess many assets which include historical housing stock, highly developed infrastructure, and significant community resources and involvement.

In Holyoke, the UPP has developed neighborhood open space plans, helped create neighborhood associations, run workshops on planning issues, and designed public spaces that reflect the cultures of the Latino populations. In Springfield, the UPP created a neighborhood open space plan, has helped implement park and streetscape improvements by giving ongoing technical assistance and organizing student volunteer labor, and provided research assistance on economic development issues.

In Chicopee and Pittsfield, studio groups and interns have developed design alternatives for open space, created strategies for re-using vacant lots and vacant buildings, and designed "gateways" for the downtown.

UPP has worked with a number of groups in western Massachusetts including the Churchill Neighborhood Association and Nueva Esperanza in Holyoke; the Department of Community Development and Downtown Pittsfield, Inc. in Pittsfield; the City of Springfield and the Concerned Citizens for Springfield; and the Office of Community Development in Chicopee.

UPP has received a 1997 Social Advocacy Award, a 1998 Planning Project Award for the Pittsfield Gateway Project and a 1998 Social Advocacy Award for the YouthPower Guide; all awarded by the Masschusetts Chapter of the American Planning Association (APA). UPP has received an honor for student work in 1999 from the Boston Society of Landscape Architects, and has also been recognized by the University of Massachusetts, receiving a 1999 President's Award for Public Service. Most recently, UPP has been awarded a 2000 APA award for Public Education.