Re-Imagining Cleveland

Re-Imagining Cleveland is a collaborative project led by Neighborhood Progress Inc., partnering with the Green City Blue Lake Institute, Park Works , the Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative, the Ohio State University Extension, and the City of Cleveland.

The project aims to reclaim and rehabilitate vacant land throughout the city of Cleveland by “providing grants to grassroots neighborhood groups, churches, schools and individuals to carry out vacant land reclamation projects developed in the Re-Imagining a More Sustainable Cleveland Plan and Pattern Book publications. Projects range from single lot side yard expansions, native plant pocket parks, phytoremediation sites and permeable parking lots to agriculture projects such as community gardens, orchards, vineyards and multi-acre market gardens.”

The Center for Public History + Digital Humanities provides input in a number of ways that address the needs for communication and project documentation. A grantee-driven website at reimaginingcleveland.org, created by the Center, is designed to document grant activity through project blogs, status updates, group forums, and more. This “real-time documentation” provides the basis for a future project archive as well as a tool for group communication and study in the present. Beginning in Spring 2010, students in the Dept. of History at CSU began working with the Center to conduct oral history interviews with grant recipients, documenting project goals, activity and outcomes. These interviews, along with other project information and artifacts, are housed on the project site.

To get involved or learn more, please visit reimaginingcleveland.org.