Celebrating Black Culture in Urban Planning

Left to Right: W.E.B Dubois, Mary Pattillo, Gordon Parks, Rev. Dr. Calvin Butts, III, John Hope Franklin, Samuel J. Cullers, William Julius Wilson, Dorothy Mae Richardson

To close out Black History Month, Karp Strategies would like to celebrate the rich history and impacts of Black culture in urban planning by highlighting influential figures and organizations in this space. As a diverse firm in this field, we are proud to acknowledge this history and deploy its lessons learned in the work we do every day.

The American Planning Association has compiled a list of 11 of the most influential Black urbanists, including luminaries like W.E.B. DuBois and contemporaries like Mary Patillo. The individuals on this list are considered pioneers in the field, many of whom brought their sociological and activist backgrounds to approach planning.

Modern Black urbanists are cited as leading the fight for more inclusive cities by approaching modern solutions with a historical lens. Building on these legacies, Black + urban, a platform for elevating the voices of Black, Latino, Indigenous, and other underrepresented urban planners, highlights the seven critical objectives of Black planners to remodel communities and the general profession over the next decade. These objectives focus on equity and engagement as vehicles to prioritize healthy cities, social justice, and uplifting Black businesses and social entrepreneurs.

As for modern trailblazing organizations, BlackSpace Urbanist Collective is composed of 200 Black designers, architects, artists, and urban planners based in Brooklyn. It is committed to Black-centered planning and design through community workshops, planning exercises, and cooperative design efforts.

This is just a small sample of the enormous contributions of Black people to the field of urban planning. Is there someone else to add to the list? Please comment below.

New Bedford State Pier Redevelopment Moves Forward

New Bedford Harbor

In December 2022, MassDevelopment announced its official recommendation of Taber’s Wharf Partners to redevelop the New Bedford State Pier in New Bedford, Massachusetts. This recommendation follows a competitive RFP process held in 2022. It draws on suggestions from a site and feasibility analysis conducted in 2020 by Karl F. Seidman Consulting Services in collaboration with Karp Strategies and Jacobs Engineering Group.

Karp Strategies’ economic development practice centers on developing strategies that are forward-thinking, actionable, and based on a nuanced understanding of the local community, market, and historical conditions. We are thrilled to see our economic development work contribute to the advancement of reinvestment plans for this important facility.

The New Bedford State Pier is an 8.5-acre waterfront site adjacent to New Bedford’s downtown. Its current uses include docking for fishing vessels, a busy passenger ferry terminal, some break-bulk cargo, marine support services, and government offices. Despite this activity, the State Pier remains underutilized relative to its capacity.

Karp Strategies first began our work at the New Bedford State Pier in 2016, collaborating with Karl F. Seidman Consulting Services and Urban Focus LLC to provide a fiscal and operations analysis of four State Piers across Massachusetts. This analysis supported future policy and use decisions made by MassDevelopment, the Commonwealth’s economic development agency, and the Massachusetts Seaport Economic Council (SEC). Following the analysis and delivery of a comprehensive final report, MassDevelopment took over operations and management of the New Bedford State Pier in 2017 and began repositioning this working waterfront for future economic development opportunities.

In 2020, MassDevelopment sought a deeper use analysis specific to the New Bedford State Pier in order to activate expanded maritime and industrial operations and increase revenue. Building off our initial 2016 work, Karp Strategies analyzed the State Pier’s current uses and five possible future revenue generation opportunities to inform and drive a comprehensive economic development strategy. Our team evaluated the project context by conducting a planning and baseline analysis, examining existing area economic and demographic conditions, and assessing community assets and needs. This research informed a full analysis of the feasibility of locating offshore wind support services on the State Pier, including extensive research and stakeholder interviews examining the offshore wind supply chain, timeline, workforce impacts, and development risks.

The redevelopment proposal and agreement between Taber’s Wharf Partners and MassDevelopment draws on the findings from this analysis and marks a significant step forward in building a thriving economic development ecosystem moored to the State Pier. The proposed redevelopment will include offshore wind support services, seafood auction and processing, street-side retail and restaurants, and other marine industrial activities—uses informed by Karp Strategies’ feasibility analysis. The two parties have entered a Provisional Designated Developer Agreement, and redevelopment planning will begin this year.

Through our community and economic development practice, Karp Strategies works closely with clients like MassDevelopment to analyze, develop, and implement community and economic development strategies, policies, and strategic plans. We believe in establishing diverse and inclusive workforces, tapping into the critical role of small and minority-owned businesses in project supply chains, and sustainably leveraging and retrofitting existing assets—including piers like New Bedford—to meet the needs of the 21st-century economy.

Read the full press release about the New Bedford State Pier partnership below.

https://www.massdevelopment.com/news/step-toward-development-at-state-pier/

M/WBE Spotlight: L+L

Liz Seibert Turow and Leigh Mignogna in their Brooklyn studio. Photo by @kelseyannrose.

Choosing a design partner is not easy. When it comes to aesthetics, everyone has an opinion on what looks best, but clearly conveying a community and its goals visually takes a lot of skill. L+L, a women-owned design firm, has just that skill. Karp Strategies was lucky enough to work with L+L on a project for Cooper Robertson, Return to the Riverbend, a riverfront master plan for Middletown, Connecticut. It was L+L’s campaign identity that set the look and feel of the engagement materials and final plan.

Becoming L+L

L+L is a multi-disciplinary design studio started in 2015. But their story stretches back to when L+L wasn’t the name of a studio; it was just shorthand for Liz and Leigh, two graduate students completing their coursework at Pratt Institute. As the pair drew closer to earning their degrees and worked the requisite hours together in a studio, they began to consider creating their own firm. Although both designers had existing positions, they each slowly extricated themselves to start L+L.

Today the firm has grown to four employees, with Liz and Leigh each brainstorming, reviewing every project, and bouncing ideas off one another to prevent the type of self-reinforcing feedback that comes from working alone. They view themselves as communicators and translators who help their clients by taking complex ideas and content—and finding a way to visually explain it to their audience. Far beyond artistry, the pair reach out to stakeholders and community members to ensure that their work correctly reflects the communities their deliverables represent and inform.

The duo enjoys tackling diverse projects, from brand and product strategy to user experience and interactive design and everything in between. Still, Liz and Leigh were particularly eager to work with civic design and urban planning organizations. Through The Center for Urban Pedagogy’s (CUP) Public Access Design fellowship—where they made this guide to help people who’d been arrested retrieve their belongings—they gained confidence in their ability to partner with other subject matter experts and realized an interest in working alongside similarly impactful organizations. Soon, they had expanded their work to other socially minded projects, from an online knowledge repository for Code for America to the design of a full brand system for the civic tech nonprofit JustFix.

Get it Back guide created for the Center for Urban Pedagogy.

Creating Middletown, Connecticut’s Riverfront Master Plan

In June 2021, the City of Middletown, Connecticut, selected a consultant team led by Cooper Robertson (and supported by Karp Strategies and Langan) to help create a riverfront master plan. From the start, the City saw this undertaking as an exciting opportunity to reverse the impacts of urban renewal, support forward-thinking economic growth, and build a new waterfront grounded in the goals and needs of local Middletown stakeholders. To inform the plan, Karp Strategies led a market analysis, economic development analysis and strategy, and thorough community engagement.

L+L created a set of brand guidelines and design templates to clearly articulate the thoughts and feelings of the community and the future they envisioned. Cooper Robertson then took all of the analysis and input—including over 1,200 stakeholder comments—and transformed it into the beautiful and inspiring plan that exists today. The final plan reimagines a 200-acre stretch of land along the Connecticut River as vibrant and accessible new city districts with significant open spaces and a broad mix of uses. The plan includes photographs, graphics, maps, and even images of sticky note comments from community engagement meetings, all laid out in an easily digestible format.

Detail of Return to the Riverbend Master Plan.

To learn more about L+L, visit their website or on Instagram or reach out at shoutout@landl.us to sign up for their newsletter.