Wednesday Discussion To Address Urban Village

Downtown Spokane has many ingredients essential for a viable urban core: jobs, retail shops, performing arts facilities, and a 50-acre playground straddling the Spokane River.

Missing, though, are the diverse housing opportunities that would allow individuals, couples and families of all income levels to move downtown and embrace it as their neighborhood.

But that’s changing. Old apartment buildings are being rehabilitated, new multi-family houses are rising along the riverbank, and a 1,000-unit project is proposed for land north of the Maple Street Bridge.

The implications of this trend are the subject of a panel discussion titled “Exploring the Urban Village,” scheduled for Wednesday evening from 6:50 to 8:30 in the downtown library, room A1.

This is the sixth public workshop sponsored by a group called Creating the Future. Spokeswoman Bernadine Van Thiel says the group’s goal is “to demonstrate possibilities for sustainable living that will inspire hope in our population.”

Wednesday’s panel will include Chris Hugo of the city planning department, developer Don Barbieri, teacher Debra Schultz, who grew up in an intentional community outside Chicago, and Phyllis Anderson, who has been involved in planning an intentional community in Spokane.

For more information, contact Van Thiel at 467-0990.