Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for July 17, 2007 HELP WANTED - CONDUCT CAIRO INVENTORY

From the Southern Illinoisan...

SIUC professor seeks volunteers for Cairo revitalization project

BY SCOTT FITZGERALD, THE SOUTHERN

CAIRO - When architecture professor Robert Swenson of Southern Illinois University Carbondale teaches his students about revitalization efforts, the setting is anything but a classroom.

He has led previous SIU urban study classes to the Ninth Ward in New Orleans before and after Hurricane Katrina.

In addition to an ongoing urban study project he has been conducting in Carbondale, Swenson is leading another urban study group to Cairo for a revitalization project beginning this fall.

But he needs help from the community first for information gathering.

Swenson, with help from the Cairo Rotary Club and Southern Illinois Development Empowerment Zone, will host an organization meeting at 5:30 p.m. today in the Presbyterian Church community room at 1708 Washington St.

"We hope the community responds. We want the people in Cairo to tell us what they want in their city," Swenson said, noting that people who are interested in historic preservation, neighborhood improvement and economic development should attend.

Tonight's meeting agenda will include information about an initial survey that will launch this summer.

Volunteers will be canvassing nearly every city block to find out what's in Cairo.

"This will require a tremendous volunteer effort to fan out across the city with notepads and digital cameras to record what's there. The inventory will be a planning tool for redevelopment of vacant land, houses and businesses," Swenson said.

A sampling of what volunteers will likely seek during their survey will be to find out if a particular building or house is on the National Register of Historical Places.

Swenson said Cairo Rotary Club members and Mayor Judson Childs are excited about the project.

"There's potential for a lot of new people to move into Cairo. This is the first step - to conduct an inventory," Swenson said.