MEDIA ADVISORY: R00201 – 20 September 2016
Residents in downtown St. Catharines are pleased with downtown revitalization efforts, but would like to see more open spaces and places to sit, relax and stroll, according to research by Brock University’s Niagara Community Observatory (NCO).
“They want to see places where people are comfortable and engaged in pleasurable, low-cost or free leisure activities,”said Brock geography Professor Michael Ripmeester, who surveyed 300 residents as part of the NCO’s research paper released this summer, Downtown revitalization in St. Catharines: Building the public space.
Downtown renewal will be the topic of a public forum led by a panel featuring Ripmeester, St. Catharines Mayor Walter Sendzik and Brock Faculty of Education Interim Dean David Siegel. The meeting takes place Monday, Sept. 26 from 10 a.m. to noon in Room 207 of the Cairns Family Health and Bioscience Complex at Brock.
The NCO is a research unit at Brock that produces policy briefs and activities that address a wide range of issues on current and emerging trends at the regional, provincial and national levels.
Topics covered in past research briefs include: the presence and impacts of poverty in Niagara; representation on municipal councils in Ontario; and barriers to post-secondary education.
Monday’s discussion will mark the first event for the NCO under the leadership of Brock Political Science associate professor Charles Conteh, who was recently named the observatory’s director.
“My goal is to create platforms of conversation that we can translate into research questions and then provide evidence to inform action and policy,” Conteh said. “We’re developing a discipline of paying very careful attention to what our community is saying: to understand, feel the pulse of where they are, and then leverage the expertise to respond to them.”
The panel discussion is open to the media and the general public. There’s no cost to attend.
More information on the NCO policy brief can be found in The Brock News.
Niagara Community Observatory Panel Discussion
What: Presentation and panel discussion on the topic: Downtown revitalization in St. Catharines: Building the public space
Who: Mike Ripmeester, Professor of Geography, Brock University; Walter Sendzik, Mayor, City of St. Catharines; David Siegel, Interim Dean, Faculty of Education, Brock University
When: Monday, Sept. 26, 10 a.m. – noon
Where: Cairns Family Health and Bioscience Complex, Room 207, Brock University.
For more information or for assistance arranging interviews:
* Dan Dakin, Media Relations Officer, Brock University ddakin@brocku.ca, 905-688-5550 x5353 or 905-347-1970
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