Re-Designing the East Side: Planners meet the grass roots
Madison, Wisconsin

In 1999, Design Coalition sponsored an all-eastside citizens 'community planning' forum to help Eastsiders to absorb the barrage of new planning information, and provide an opportunity for consensus-building. Our staffers were also involved as participants in many of the citizen input sessions.

Design Coalition sponsored another EastSide Citizen's Forum in July, 2000. The main topic this time was the proposed High Speed Rail line that may extend the length of the Eastside, profoundly affecting neighborhoods.

The Eastside of Madison, Wisconsin has been experiencing a flurry of city-making that will affect its character for at least the next 50 years. In the last two years we saw:

• the creation of an East Isthmus Neighborhoods Planning Council (EINPC) representing some 19 neighborhoods
• ongoing planning for the Yahara River Parkway, with citizen design charettes [intensive design sessions]
• planning for the reconstruction of East Washington Avenue , a busy Federal highway that bisects Madison's isthmus and profoundly affects the livability of the city's oldest neighborhoods
• BUILD Project (Better Urban Infill Land Development) design charettes (intensive participatory sessions with planners & citizens) for the East Washington Avenue and Williamson Street business districts
• formation of the Schenk-Atwood-Starkweather-Yahara (SASY) Neighborhood Association