Sustainable
Communities Project
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The CPC is implementing a Sustainable Communities Project
to build sustainable communities through participatory
planning. As a member of the Consortium of Appalachian Centers
and Programs convened by the Appalachian Regional Commission
(ARC), CPC is working with UT faculty and students to initiate
a project in Cocke County, Tennessee.
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Other counties will be added as the program is expanded. The
Learning Team/Planning Team approaches funded by the Ford Foundation
are the basis of our work.
Under a Collaborative Research and Teaching Project funded by the
ARC to the Consortium, CPC (Dr. Virginia Seitz) and the Department
of Urban and Regional Planning (Dr. Bruce Tonn) taught a graduate
field course in Fall Semester 2001. The purpose of the course was to
build partnerships for participatory research and planning, and to
implement a two-session workshop in Cocke County to initiate a
sustainable community planning and decision-making processes. The
workshops included sessions on defining sustainability, the community
planning process, values, and visions for Cocke County, a
participant-implemented countywide assessment of constraints and
opportunities to sustainable development, and the development of
alternative futures scenarios. Drs. Seitz and Tonn, with our Cocke
County and additional university partners, are developing research
and other planning activities to forward these efforts.
The project resulted in a detailed report on the county,
“Participatory Planning for Sustainable Development in Cocke County
Tennessee.” In 2002 we returned to Cocke County with another group of students. This program helped residents fulfill their vision of environmentally sensitive economic growth. Focusing on green industries, students and participants developed strategies to attract industries that would provide good jobs while respecting the natural beauty of the region. Two presentations from the 2002 workshops are available online: "Introduction
to UT-Cocke County Sustainable Development Workshops" "Community
Criteria to Guide Sustainable Development"
The 2002 final report is also available:
A Template for Sustainable Development in Cocke County, Tennessee
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