D4CR
Design for Community Regeneration
D4CR Northwest MN Begins Summer 2023
The D4CR Team with its partners, received a Deepening Impact grant from the NW Regional Sustainable Development Partnership to continue its work in Northwest Minnesota. Building off of the successful work in Warren, MN, this grant is part one of a two-year vision to engage organizations and communities across NW Minnesota to envision a regenerative and resilient future, and identify opportunities for coordinated community innovations toward that future.
Learn More about the D4CR Northwest MN project
Welcome.
Design for Community Regeneration (D4CR) is a Minnesota Design Center initiative led by Tim Griffin, Jonee Kulman Brigham, and Dewey Thorbeck. D4CR partners with communities in a process of imagining and planning their regenerative and resilient future addressing food, water, and energy security while increasing economic opportunities, social cohesion, and finding low cost housing options. Communities participate in a ground-up "Geodesign" process assisted by geographic data, and a dashboard for community goals. Regional clusters of rural, peri-urban, and urban communities will explore how to identify their assets of land such as underutilized golf courses, school properties, and industrial sites and participate in an inclusive decision process about future regenerative land use yielding initiatives ready for prototyping and implementation.
Pilot: NW Minnesota
D4CR is a decade-long plan for piloting and then expanding a Design for Community Regeneration model across Minnesota.
The first pilot project was funded for application in Warren, Minnesota. The project is made possible by funding from the Northwest Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships (NWRSDP), City of Warren, and in-kind support from partner organizations. D4CR Warren Phase 1 resulted in a list of potential regenerative innovations for Warren and Phase 2 continued with four prototype projects prioritized by the community to be further evaluated to help move Warren toward implementation. Additionally CERTS Clean Energy Resource Teams) funded a detailed clean energy independence report.
We are currently funded by NWRSDP to work with regional and local representatives to consider the opportunities of regional and sub-regional cooperation. In our next phase, we will reach out to interested cities in the region. For example Crookston and Hallock have expressed interest.
If you are interested in learning more, following our progress, contributing ideas or funds, or becoming a future D4CR community, please contact Tim Griffin at griff282@umn.edu
The Regional Sustainable Development Partnership RSDP brings together community and University knowledge and resources to drive sustainability in four focus areas: agriculture and food systems, clean energy, natural resources and resilient communities.
Warren is a city in northwestern Minnesota of 1,678 as of 2010 and is the county seat of Marshall County. Warren is a MN GreenStep City and the recipient of multiple environmental awards.
https://www.warrenminnesota.com
Connecting Local, Regional, and State Planning
D4CR is connecting across communities and regions to grow the 10 year vision for regenerative planning.
8 minute Lightning talk from the 2021 conference, 2022 coming soon
Geodesign Presentation
D4CR Leaders, Tim Griffin and Jonee Kulman Brigham presented the D4CR Warren project progress to date at the 2022 Geodesign Summit on April 11-12, 2022.
The Geodesign Summit gathers developers, practitioners, and researchers from the ESRI GIS community to share their work using GIS and Geodesign processes.
Watch our 8 minute videos, and check out other Geodesign presentations at the the current proceedings site (coming soon), or the 2021 proceedings website.
Be part of the D4CR Network
Fill out this Interest Survey to express your interest and receive occasional emails.
Use our survey to express your interest in D4CR, whether you are a city that wants to explore participation, want to provide input, partner, or fund the project, or if you'd just like to connect and be on our mailing list. Mailings are typically 1-4 times/year. See who else has signed up on the map.
Use the QR code or this LINK