Transmission Project

One of ACDC’s principal roles in Chinatown is to organize the community to influence the future of our neighborhood through proactive urban planning and by guiding real estate development. Chinatown is experiencing intense development pressures that, if not handled with foresight and focused community engagement strategies, could conflict significantly with the needs of its current residents. Even as ACDC has been able to increase the affordable housing inventory, we are concerned that Asian American families are slipping further behind in the struggle for financial self-sufficiency. ACDC is working to identify resources and create a sustainable multidisciplinary approach to connect both individual and community level needs to the physical developments unfolding in the neighborhood.

More recently ACDC has been identified by the Ford Foundation and MacArthur Foundation for significant investment in comprehensive and participatory community development projects. As the economic crisis puts strains on all sectors of society that low-income and immigrant communities rely upon, government, social service agencies, businesses, and even family assets, the call has gone up for better and more collaborations to ensure more efficiencies while maintaining the delivery of services.

Census 2000 shows 1,761 housing units in Chinatown. Since then, 2,091 new units have been built or proposed, an increase of 84% marked by predominantly market-rate or luxury development. Rent increased 10% to 200% in six housing developments in two years. Within Chinatown, the Boston Redevelopment Authority website currently lists nine projects, totaling 1,914,719 square feet of residential, retail, and /or office development approved or under construction. The cumulative impact of these new development pressures threatens the existing population.

To date, ACDC has facilitated and led three major community planning efforts and are currently engaged in the Chinatown 2010 Master Plan update. The VISTA will help to transform planning practices from limited transactions between developers and communities to a persistent conversation shaped by participatory learning. ACDC, and its partners, the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) and the Hub2 collaborative, seeks to activate local residents in the participation of the design and development of their own public spaces. Chinatown residents will engage in a learning process that includes 3D tools and problem-solving techniques to help them articulate both their individual and community values and a vision for the future.

This FY 2010, 10-month project will engage youth volunteers to sit side-by side with community participants in physical space (e.g. the local high school or community center) and simultaneously to help them navigate a 3D virtual space where they engage in scenario building to test various urban design proposals. Through this program, youth will serve as assistants and interpreters who mediate between the virtual environment and the community participants. VISTA project activities will include developing a system and infrastructure that increases our capacity for youth recruitment, management, and training, as well as planning for facilitated collaborative learning sessions about neighborhood design. The partnership with Hub2 and the planned sessions will last for a 10-month funded period. The work that the VISTA performs will not be needed for the same purposes beyond this project term. However, we anticipate that the VISTA’s contribution will enhance future organizational youth recruitment and engagement practices.