Natural Resources and Community Health This section focuses on how a comprehensive plan can be used to provide opportunities for active living through deliberate planning policies and regulatory tools for parks, trails and open space. Identifying natural-resource assets in a community and planning for their use can also create economic development benefits. In this context, …

This section provides an introduction to basic concepts of economic development and how they are related to land use planning. These include asset-based economic development, the community balance sheet, and the three-legged stool. The focus then turns to common economic development goals for communities, and strategies for land use and local policy to consider when …

Purdue Extension and the Indiana Land Resources Council collaboratively developed this guidance document to support plan commission members as well as local government officials and staff — with resources and examples to integrate agriculture and natural resources into community land use planning efforts for developing or updating comprehensive plans. Each document in the series provides …

Inclusive growth and the future of work were recent topics at the Community & Economics Leadership Program (CELP), led by George Okantey, Extension community development educator in Marion County. Mark Fisher, Chief Policy Officer of Indy Chamber, presented on rebuilding the dream through inclusive growth, which ensures economic growth benefits for everyone. He talked about …

DEI Indy earned the second highest team, out of a total of 28 teams, for the North Central region at the Impact Collaborative summit in Atlanta. As a result of our work, DEI Indy has been invited to apply for a $5,000 grant to help bring new capacity to our project. Our project is Learn …

Eighteen staff from Purdue Extension and the College of Agriculture met at the Wright Forestry Center from May 21-22 to participate in a facilitated dialogue on race and racism as part of the national program Coming Together for Racial Understanding (CTRU). Kris Parker (Community Development), Mindy Mayes (Health and Human Sciences) and Michael Wilcox (Community …

This article was originally published in the June/July 2019 issue of Terre Haute Living. Raise your hand if you have attended any business meeting that you roll your eyes and think that the meeting is too long? So often, the agenda and purpose of the meeting can be accomplished in less than 45 minutes, but …

By Bob Hansen – bhansen@newsexaminer.com Three different areas of emphasis are being developed into a comprehensive plan to help make central Connersville a place where healthier choices are easier to make. A group of people who started working last spring on a process called Enhancing the Value of Public Spaces – Creating Healthy Communities had …

This article was originally published in the May 2019 issue of Terre Haute Living. In a world where we are constantly asked to have more things completed, assigned more tasks and given more responsibilities, it seems there is a never-ending amount of chaos circling around us. Being more productive is one of the items we …

Conversations move life forward. They can also stop things from moving forward. Relationships begin and end on conversations. Teams are formed and broken apart. Goals are made, expectations laid out, visions happen, all around conversations. When we face difficult conversations, we can do one of three things: we can avoid them, we can face them …