Long Beach Community Design Center

The work continues!! I'm excited to participate in the APA California Conference President’s session this month in Riverside as a panelist to discuss our efforts in building a pathway to careers in urban planning and design with APA California, Long Beach City College, and Cal Poly Pomona. The Long Beach Community Design Center and Civic Confidence LLC has expanded this partnership with the City of Long Beach, by offering internships for college students to foster real-world learning experiences in urban planning, design, collaboration, and civic engagement. Our goal is to connect students with professionals, provide learning opportunities, and prepare them for successful careers. Long Beach City Press Release https://lnkd.in/gaF4evEV

The Long Beach Community Design Center (LBCDC), along with planning colleagues James Rojas and Vidal Marquez, held a project-based model-building workshop at the Billie Jean King Library last week. The workshop aimed to introduce urban planning and design thinking to high school educators from CSU Long Beach and Long Beach library staff so that they could incorporate it into their SEED program. The SEED program is a summer design camp for 7th and 8th graders, allowing them to explore downtown Long Beach and learn about various aspects of urban life, such as climate and sustainability, civic engagement, public safety, urban planning, and architecture. LBCDC is thrilled about the opportunity to strengthen its partnership with the LB Library staff and CSU Long Beach for this important youth program! #City of Long Beach #Dramatic Results #James Rojas #Vidal Marquez

Undergraduate urban & regional planning students from Cal Poly Pomona, led by the Long Beach Community Design Center spent the afternoon last week at Silverado and Houghton Park Teen Centers teaching young people about urban planning and design. The URP students covered topics like zoning, parks and open space, world city design, and conducted a walk audit with the youth. They also used site builder, street mix, and PlaceIt to have the youth create their ideal streetscapes and communities. Another workshop is scheduled this week, and at the end of the month the youth will come together for a final workshop and campus tour of Cal Poly Pomona. Thank you, Long Beach Parks, Recreation, and Marine staff for your ongoing support of the Youth Community Planners of Long Beach program!!  

We continue to support and invest in Long Beach Youth through our Young Community Planners of Long Beach program. We recently facilitated a workshop at Cesar Chavez Park where 10 youths from local high schools engaged in a design-based/hands-on learning experience to understand Zoning/City Planning by using their hands, senses, and objects to create their ideal physical environment in Downtown Long Beach.  themes emerged around open and green spaces and social gathering areas. From these themes, the specific priorities/elements that the youth voiced that they would like to see in the Downtown Long Beach Specific Plan were: ·      Gathering Places ·      Green Spaces and Recreation Areas ·      Community Centers ·      Wayfinding (connectivity) ·      Science Center ·      Food Trucks ·      Entertainment ·      More security in DTLB ·      Biking ·      More Library Services ·      Apartments w/garden terraces ·      Outreach to Schools ·      Futuristic ideas (symbolized by a rocket ship) LBCDC will continue to work with Long Beach youth to facilitate their planning and design voice to influence and inform future city plans and development.