This study of “place," approved by the Allegheny College Institutional Review Board (IRB), aims to explore how people experience Meadville, Pennsylvania. The goal is to determine how the aesthetics of Meadville impact a person’s experience of a particular place and then compare these findings with the practices of tactical urbanism. According to the Tactical Urbanist’s Guide, tactical urbanism is “all about action. Also known as DIY Urbanism, Planning-by-Doing, Urban Acupuncture, or Urban Prototyping, this approach refers to a city, organizational, and/or citizen-led approach to neighborhood building using short-term, low-cost, and scalable interventions to catalyze long-term change.” I will conduct interviews with people who are at least 18 years old and that live or work within the city limits of Meadville for more than six months out of the year. Interviewees can be someone who considers themselves local to Meadville or Allegheny College students who live in Meadville during the academic year.

Each interview will last between 30 minutes and 60 minutes and will follow an established set of questions relating to the interviewee’s experience(s) in Meadville. Interviewees can choose between interviews on secure, up-to-date platforms, like Zoom and Google Meet, or in-person. If the participants choose to meet in-person, we will strictly follow the ACHA’s and IRB Board’s Covid guidelines. If I am meeting in-person with a member of the Allegheny community we will be masked indoors. When meeting with a community member in-person, both parties will be masked at all times. If the interviewee is not vaccinated, interviews will be conducted remotely.

The interview responses will be collected, analyzed to identify common themes, and then compared to strategies within tactical urbanism. This research is done in partnership with Zach Norwood of the Crawford County Planning Department with hopes that the Crawford County Planning Department will use the stories of people’s experiences, my analyses of them, and my proposed potential use of tactical urbanism strategies to strengthen and support low cost/high impact place-making efforts within the Meadville community.

Participating in this study is completely voluntary.
 
Please feel free to reach out to Faythe Schulte (schultef@allegheny.edu) with any further questions or concerns.