2010 beginnings

R2G Utica’s story is exciting and groundbreaking as it was the first R2G community-university partnership in NY State to result from Cornell University’s Rust2Green Action Research Initiative. In 2010, a small interdisciplinary team of Cornell University professors secured a USDA Hatch Grant to launch the initiative in Utica–from the ground up. As NY State’s land grant high ed institution, it made sense that Cornell faculty and their students– with knowledge in landscape architecture, placemaking, community design and planning–could play a greater role in supporting struggling legacy Upstate cities, in Cornell’s own geographic backyard– develop greener futures. A 2007 Brookings Institute Report (Vey) had strengthened their resolve when it identified Utica and six other Upstate NY cities, among a larger group of older industrial legacy cities in the US Rust Belt. These cities were lagging behind economically and in residential well-being having endured decades of dramatic economic and social disruption and change. With impressive legacy assets– architecture, culture, infrastructure, parks systems and more– these cities also held particular promise for revitalization and renewed prosperity. But, as Brookings noted, creative forward thinking would be needed and so would the help and support of others including local and state government, business and civic sectors and higher education institutions, like Cornell.

In early 2010 R2G’s Cornell faculty and an expanding group of local Utican’s began meeting together, setting goals, identifying local assets and prioritizing community-development projects to pursue by bringing together and networking the knowledge of university and community collaborators. it was agreed that to be effective, there had to be more than talk. This meant that visible and palpable action, results and impacts that could also shift Utica’s perceived negative narrative to one emphasizing promise, positivity and potential was key. The focus would be placemaking through building on and leveraging Utica’s rich pool of assets and strengths– both those immediately apparent as well as those less visible, latent or un- and under-recognized. R2G’s work, therefore, would be to uncover and amplify assets, foster imaginative, creative and visionary thinking, and produce new possibilities and futures borne from Utica’s distinctiveness and sense of place.

today 2019

Ten years later much has happened in Utica emerging from R2G’s efforts. Many, many locally identified and prioritized placemaking projects have unfolded engaging dozens and dozens of organizations and agencies and hundreds of citizens working together to enact change. Working together with the Utica community have been Cornell faculty and more than 200 students from both Cornell as well as other area colleges including Hamilton, Colgate, MWPratt and Utica College.

In 2015, R2G’s growth and accompanying successes enabled the founding of a locally staffed R2G Utica Urban Studio in Utica’s City Hall–supported by City government, CCE Oneida County, Cornell R2G and the Community Foundation– for the ensuing four years. In 2018 R2G was established as a non-profit fiscally sponsored by the Community Foundation of Herkimer & Oneida Counties and in 2019 moved its headquarters to MVCC’s thINCubator. R2G continues to advance short and long-term placemaking projects resulting in new community spaces, events, environments, policies, and programs benefiting the community and creating a greener, healthier, more equitable, livable and vibrant city and region.

True to the optimistic spirit and outlook of the core group of community and university founders who set R2G Utica in motion in 2010, R2G has forged ahead and endured even without ready access to financial resources and support. It has been propelled by a wealth of energy and social capital coming from its community and university partners and their uniting in pursuit of common goals. To advance R2G projects, it has prepared and submitted more than a dozen NYS Consolidated Funding grant applications and another 10 million in grant proposals. It has secured upwards of 10M in grant monies and has leveraged that and more in the form of matching funds and in-kind contributions from Cornell and others. Together with the combined knowledge and commitment of so many, R2G has accomplished a great deal but of course, much more remains to be done!