Concordia led a citywide planning process in Springfield, Massachusetts as the city worked to recover from a devastating tornado. Citizens came together in a series of community meetings at both the neighborhood and citywide levels to bring Springfield back to be better and stronger. Public meetings, local press, television and radio, and social media were all tools used in the process of building a community-driven plan.
In a process that took place over four months, over 2,000 citizens participated in the Rebuild Springfield planning process. These meetings were not simply lecture-style gatherings, but opportunities for residents and stakeholders to sit around small tables and have lengthy discussions and conversations about issues and projects that were important to them. The people of Springfield worked in cooperation with one another to prioritize recommendations, to provide feedback about important actors and organizations within the community who needed to be included, and refined goals, guidelines, and final recommendations.
