The Revitalization Agenda

Revitalization is the “sweet spot of sustainability”.

It restores the quality of built places, reconnects natural pathways, and re-invigorates local economies. It is not a greening strategy

which despite its merit often simply slows the rate of environmental decline. It is an economic growth strategy enhancing an area’s

fundamental character, by providing cleaner air and water, adding to the stock of resilient eco system services, and re-building the quality

and functionality of the built heritage. It is a job creation strategy based on permanent sustainability because it is embedded in local realities, and provides investors with confidence by demonstrating

that a Municipality is going in the right direction.

• "However difficult it is to pull an economy out of recession, that is nothing compared to the impossibility of lowering sea levels, preventing hurricanes and eliminating huge deserts once irreversible climate change has taken place"The Daily Telegraph, 19-25 March 2009, p. 23

Revitalization Institute (RI) at Seneca College

Global Secretariat for Revitalization Institute (RI) - an academic network for aggregating the best restorative development practices, providing lessons for the next generation of policy makers and applied workers, and undertaking analytical appraisal of successes and failures.

While based at Seneca College in Toronto, its network of post-secondary institutions and non-academic partners is an alliance of equals which contribute to and share collected expertise.

Storm Cunningham is a distinguished resident visiting professor at Seneca and through his company Resolution Fund provides training and direction for investment.

GTA restorative development leadership

• 1. Build a Renewal Culture by instituting a local renewal engine in participating GTA municipalities.

• 2. Provide education and training for policy makers and application workers. • 3. Develop alternate visioning strategies incorporating EbD, Digital

storytelling, Urban branding, Psycho-geography

• 4. Institute a site characterization and investigation process to determine the environmental site conditions and possibilities, financial requirements and investment potential, and regulatory challenges.

• 5. Attend to a trusted advisor role as facilitator of public meetings, communicating with property owners, and public officials.

• 6. Monitor re-development as a tool for engagement, project management, project design and implementation consistent with revitalization.

King Campus of Seneca College as a 700 acre global centre for revitalization

• Applied research• Technology application and transfer• Education and training • Jobs development• Ideas generation

The Mayor’s Tower Renewal Project: an ongoing lived experience of revitalization unfolding

• Active student engagement from Seneca based programs and RI social media network

• Recording (digitally, archiving, written) best restorative practices and lessons• Restorative development awareness/publicity through integration with RI and

Resolution Fund• Psycho-geography and related community engagement tools – Urban Pre-

Planning, Enquiry by Design (EbD), Digital Storytelling, Walkscore• Urban agriculture training/implementation - planning, maintenance, ethnic

diversity, market • Soil rebuilding techniques for contaminated, compacted and problematic soil• Building energy analysis/monitoring - energy profile, renewable energy use• RI network resources – best practices such as Elephant and Castle District in UK• Structural concrete maintenance and cladding support from engineering

technology students and faculty• Integration with system-wide applied college education and training programs

including green business/productivity, early childhood education and social work, environmental landscape management, Environmental Site Remediation

• Resident engagement replicating SHSC work.

• International Unveiling of Revitalization at Kingston University, London, United Kingdom, 14-15 May 2009

C-SCAIPE's mission is to enrich the delivery of our professional education at Kingston University by

• Embedding sustainability principles within our curricula • Supporting project-based innovation within teaching and learning

practice on our accredited courses • Enhancing connections with and between cross-discipline

professional practice and academia • Expanding our sustainability research for the benefit of both the

market and our students' education. • C-SCAIPE rewards excellence and enables staff to develop further

teaching expertise, increasing the effectiveness of student learning.• A cross-disciplinary ethos and C-SCAIPE's ability to integrate staff

and students throughout the University is central to our vision.

• The River Restoration Centre (RRC) provides a focal point for the exchange of information and expertise relating to river restoration and enhancement in the UK. Its primary role is to disseminate information on river restoration and enhancement projects and to provide advice on site-specific technical issues through a network of experienced river restoration practitioners.

• RRC is a non-profit making organisation. It is not a project design or management consultancy but aims to offer impartial advice to enable practitioners and clients, to gain maximum benefit from current experiences in a variety of easily accessible ways.

• RRC runs themed workshops, training workshops and an annual Network Conference. In addition it pubishes reports, a 'Manual of River restoration Techniques' and a newsletter.

• Absolute solutions?

if only – these are ideas in progress towards answers – we are engaging our students in a process of Socratic combativeness

“If the physical environment is the earth, the world of ideas corresponds to the heavens. We sleep under the light of stars that have long since ceased to exist, and we pattern our behaviour by ideas which have no reality as soon as we cease to credit them.”

- Lewis Mumford

Advancing an idea, a practice, and a possibility – one not entwined in the political/careerist motivations of our existential reality but in the challenge!