Downtown Eugene, Oregon
To revitalize downtown, fill the empty spaces with life. Keep them filled.
How can a community do this?
1. Create a public coalition, whose job is to make downtown, and keep it, fully alive.
2. Support those spaces that are already filled.
3. Make spaces more public-interactive when necessary.
4. And for spaces that are completely empty,
find specific, publicly-minded communities in Eugene,
and help them create special-purpose community centers.With identifiable public centers, community organizations can raise the level of their efforts, creating a place to gather, create, produce, sell, teach, study, and reach the public. They can build world-class economies around their work. The downtown then becomes something like a real-world University, turned inside out, directly serving the community and the public good. It becomes a place filled with purpose & feeling. A place where we can build a better city.
In Stage I, we created a very public, world-class center (The Tango Center), as a demonsstration project . Additional centers have emerged downtown to fill some of the spaces (DIVA, Jazz Station, MECCA, New Zone, etc.)In Stage II, we're organizing a coalition to maintain and fill the rest of the space downtown. With broad enough support at the grassroots, the city can buy the remaining structures, and put the public coalition in charge of continuous use & development of all the previously empty space.
The Tango Center
For our prototype community center, we looked for the space that needed the most help, and we transformed it, into another world. The Tango Center is a much-loved non-profit social dance venue & school, wrapped around the mystery of Argentine Tango. For 10 years, this passionate and sensitive dance, with its tradition of care and gentle connected movement, has encouraged a pleasant mingling among Eugeneans of all ages. The local Tango community is known as one of the friendliest and most inclusive in the country, and includes world-class instructors and performers.During Stage II, where a public coalition will fill downtown, the Tango Center can launch additional projects & services related to this social venue: childcare, a store, a gallery, a very late night bistro, a sound & film studio, a social dance development office, a hostel, and workshops to facilitate the local, small-scale hand-manufacture of custom shoes, clothes, masks, bags etc.
Some ideas for particular buildings and spaces
Principles
Downtown requires a continuous, deeply interconnected web of life:
- meaningful work
- community-centered social activity
- learning
- interconnected structure (so visible in photo below)
- pleasant, affordable housing
Get the heart racing
Postcards from Eugene Currents Physical Improvement Quality maps Principles
