Projects, people and happenings

Recently, Bill Eubanks, FASLA participated in a conference at Mississippi State University on Sustainable Community Development. The two day conference was aimed towards elected officials and municipal staff in Mississippi. The first day of the conference was a series of speakers who spoke on various aspects of sustainability and the concept of resiliency in our towns, particularly small towns.

The second day was a workshop concentrating on the town of Eupora, Mississippi which is a few miles outside of Starkville. It is a town of about 2,500 residents with a small but active downtown. Most of the speakers stayed over to participate in the session, along with two professors from LSU. The real purpose of the workshop was to show the participants how a public workshop is structured and conducted but the team also generated some great concepts for the sustainable redevelopment of the small town.

Because of his past experience with design charrettes and public meetings Bill Eubanks was invited to the conference to serve as facilitator of the workshop. The design team included ASLA Past President Tom Dunbar, FASLA, Executive Director of the Center for Resilient Cities in Madison, WI and Patrick Moore, FASLA of Baton Rouge, LA. The workshop was also attended by several residents of the town, including the Mayor.

Small towns are plagued with many problems but fortunately, most still have good “bones” because (to quote Robert Marvin) the south has been “too poor to destroy itself”. The basic structure for a walkable, compact town center already exists in most of these towns but needs to be made more viable by eliminating harmful, unsustainable strip development that perpetuate sprawl.

Overall, it was a fantastic experience and according to Sadik Artunc, FASLA the university hopes to make this an annual event. Eubanks felt the conference was successful because it showed the value of good design and sustainable urbanism to several elected officials and staff. Every mayor should be fully aware that they are their community’s chief urban designer and the future of their town lies in their hands and the decisions they make.