News & INSIGHTS

This fall, Paul Stewart, former czb client and Executive Director of The Oswego Renaissance Association, was interviewed on the Strong Towns podcast.

In Stewart’s interview he describes: “There had just been neighborhoods declining, blight increasing, property values stagnant or dropping… this was in 2009 or 2010. I became very concerned [for Oswego’s neighborhoods]. I just felt like this was not sustainable.”

“I did a lot of research online and I came across an approach called the Healthy Neighborhoods approach… and I found out that there was a few other cities, Jamestown, New York and Geneva, New York in New York that were doing this approach with much success… one thing led to another and I got in touch with czb and they agreed to do a study of our city.”

”What [czb] found in that year of work through collaborative work with us… was that there had been a snowball loss of confidence in our neighborhoods… we were pulling out of our own neighborhoods, of our own city, both economically and socially. [Through this process] we were shown that we have the capacity to revitalize our neighborhoods and community.”