California Avenue Streetscape

Urban Design, Community Engagement

California Avenue is a major north-south in Chicago; this streetscape vision study focuses on the half-mile stretch between 19th Street and 24th Street in the Little Village neighborhood connecting Douglass Park and Marshall Boulevard, two significant open spaces. In addition, this segment is where the Pink Line California Station is located, the main connection of this community to the downtown area. This is also the border area between Little Village, a predominantly latinx population, and North Lawndale, a historically Black community.

This six-month process took place during the middle of the pandemic with limited opportunities for in-person engagement, however we were able to collaborate with a group of community members who had been involved in previous walkability studies, and used this process as an opportunity to expand their planning and engagement capacity. The project was organized by four themes seeking to broaden the possibilities for interventions to improve walkability in this corridor: health and safety, green space and green infrastructure, arts, culture and identity, inclusive and equitable planning. The project focused on five focus areas that identified specific interventions responding to the planning themes.

More about this project:
www.miavenidacalifornia.com