Maitri Chandrashekar, sustainable community development, worked with Professor Darrel Ramsey-Musolf to assess how an elementary school area in Springfield could be made more walkable for children to ensure safety, encourage play, and celebrate cultural diversity. Chandrashekar's study draws from her experience as a land-use intern with the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, and considers ways to make Springfield a "20-Minute" city where residents can fulfill their needs within a three-mile radius from the home.
A “20-minute city” is an area that offers residents resources to fulfill tangible needs like shopping, medical care, education, and intangible needs like a sense of place, belonging, and community. Moreover, these needs are offered in a three-mile radius from the home. Moreover, a 20-minute city provides opportunities for local employment through their businesses. Finally, in this type of city, there is housing diversity, where everyone can live in one place. In general, the concept of a 20-minute city allows for society to move away from the car-centric culture and to also immediately provide people with basic amenities. I will be assessing the city of Springfield, Massachusetts through the lens of children’s safety to understand how to turn this city into a walkable 20-minute city. Specifically, I will assess the area around Brightwood and Lincoln Elementary School on 255 Plainfield St. Throughout this paper, I will be commenting on what works and what does not for the area to make it a 20-minute city.
With Dr. Ramsey-Musolf, I was able to use my experience working in-person at the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission (PVPC) to comment on Springfield’s city design. By driving to work two days a week and observing how residents interacted with the city, I could apply what I learned in college about a 20-minute city design to try and help the people there. My role as a land-use intern at the PVPC was mainly centered around community development and how to bring in Springfield’s rich cultural history to make people feel heard in the area. I took the children’s perspective because of young people’s role in politics and governmental structure today.
Through this internship, I have gained the ability to do real-world applications from what I have learned from my four years as a sustainable community development student to actual planning. Moreover, as a public policy minor, this internship really helped shape what my future goals are in regard to what I want to do with my degree.
- Maitri Chandrashekar
Read Chandrashekar's paper here.