RCP Fall 2024 Updates ??
Resilient Communities Project
We connect local governments with university faculty and students to advance community resilience and student learning.
Introducing Our 2024-2025 Partners
We're excited to announce new RCP partnerships this year with:
The projects we'll be collaborating on with these partners range?from downtown placemaking?and historic preservation to climate-related heat risk assessments and how to best use funds from?the new?Metro Area Sales and Use Tax for Housing.
Read?more about these and other projects ?we're undertaking with our local government partners this year. ?
RCP Applications Now Open
The Resilient Communities Project is currently accepting proposals from local government agencies anywhere in Minnesota for assistance with projects to begin fall 2025.
RCP partnerships provide research and technical assistance to local government agencies interested in sparking positive change in their communities.?Cities, counties, tribal government agencies, regional development commissions, watershed and school districts, and other local government agencies are eligible to apply.
The priority deadline for proposals is April 15, 2025. Learn more??
CURA Celebrates Student Research
In September, the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, University of Minnesota (CURA), RCP's administrative home at the U of MN,?hosted a Graduate Research Symposium to showcase the exceptional work of graduate students in the past year.The gathering brought together community and local government partners to celebrate student research, which is essential to CURA's?university-community partnership model. Several RCP students presented their work via posters.
New Tool Helps?Protect Natural Resources
With limited time and money, how can local governments make smart decisions when acquiring land for conservation or recreational purposes?
Graduate student Ashley Petel (Pethan) (pictured above) collaborated with Washington County, Minnesota natural resources and planning staff through an RCP partnership to develop a site-assessment tool that helps local governments understand the degree of effort and funding needed to restore and maintain a parcel of land.
RCP Project Wins APA Student Award
Three Humphrey School of Public Affairs urban and regional planning?graduate students won the American Planning Association-MN Chapter’s Outstanding Student Project for their RCP sponsored capstone project on indigenous history and placemaking with the City of La Crescent.
Using interviews and other community engagement methods, the student team of Edgar Leon Gomez, Gillian Greenberg, and Mason Mollberg worked with indigenous Hoocak (Ho-Chunk) and Dakota residents of the La Crescent area to devise a framework and preliminary design ideas for public spaces in the city that acknowledge and celebrate indigenous history and culture.
In nominating the student team for the award, La Crescent Community Development Director Larry Kirch praised the students for demonstrating "successful engagement with indigenous?communities, including how to build buy-in and trust needed for collaborative planning and?design efforts."
Density and Climate Research in Edina
When the City of Edina wanted to know whether its 2030 population density targets were sufficient to meet its transportation and climate goals, it turned to a group of students with the University of Minnesota’s Resilient Communities Project (RCP).?
RCP in the News
U of M offers a helping hand on community projects in small towns
RCP has joined other University of Minnesota partners to support sustainable and resilient infrastructure projects in small Minnesota communities throughout the state through the University's Empowering Small Minnesota Communities (ESMC) program.
RCP Director Mike Greco, AICP serves as the 11-county Twin Cities metropolitan area coordinator for this initiative, and is currently working with staff and residents in the Cities of Harris, Lindstrom, and Center City, alongside colleagues from the University's?Minnesota Design Center. A second round of communities will be selected in January to participate in the program.