Ryan Kim ’14 received EIA Civic Engagement Mini-Grant funding to attend the City Works (X)po in Roanoke, VA.
On October 18-20th I attended the City Works (X)po in Roanoke, Virginia, a conference centered on the purpose of bringing people together around “Big Ideas for Small Cities”. The conference was founded last year by a local real estate developer, Ed Walker, who is currently taking a “sabbatical” of sorts from his professional career to study as a Loeb Fellow at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. Speakers at the three-day event represented a diversity of professionals, ranging from community organizers to entrepreneurs, and were given anywhere from 15-60 minutes to inspire the audience with their work and great ideas they had had or encountered.
My aim in joining the conference was to broaden my understanding of urban development, to advance my limited knowledge into a more comprehensive perspective. Over the course of the conference, I succeeded wonderfully, in the sense that I had the chance to meet many other attendees who are involved in fascinating lines of work, including owning restaurants, developing commercial property, and providing greater access to low-income housing. Conference participants were given myriad opportunities to mingle, which holistically enhanced the event by encouraging interconnectivity and providing time and space for conversations that reflected and reacted to each day’s presentations.
Simply put, I had a sublime experience. City Works was exceptionally well organized and ceaselessly pulsed with the passion and energy of its couple hundred participants, both speakers and attendees. Though not all ideas shared were applicable to our small town of Middlebury, many of the speakers emphasized the importance of modifying all programs, events, and movements to the specific conditions and needs of one’s community anyway. In this way, there were in fact many small ways that these presentations were relevant to our town. I feel that I have returned to Roanoke energized, invigorated, by a sense of hope that fostering a healthy urban community here is very much within our reach and a real possibility.