TACTICAL REVITALIZATION PLAN FOR DOWNTOWN ALBANY NY

Section 2
It is important during the planning process to utilize “action teams” who will assist in the
implementation of the components that the process identifies as higher priority. Action teams
are groups who are sufficiently passionate about specific issues or goals to pursue the
implementation of the project once the team has completed the Plan. Ideally members of the
action teams are members of groups, organizations or stakeholders that have the ability to
assist in the realization of the Plan with influence and/or financial resources, but occasionally,
sheer doggedness is sufficient to carry a project forward. An important Tactical Plan objective
is to create enough buy-in from the public and stakeholders, through structured and meaningful
opportunities early in the process, which ultimately provides a sense of ownership of the Plan
during implementation.
Albany employed a number of interesting methods to engage the community in its preparation
of the 2030 Comprehensive Plan, including social media and speed planning. We admire that
thinking beyond the standard “present-and-respond” way of holding community meetings and
imagine dynamic ways to expand outreach. To complement our meetings with Capitalize Albany
Corporation and the City of Albany decision makers to set the foundation for the Tactical Plan,
we’d like to take the stakeholder and community engagement in the launch of the project to
the next level by providing opportunities for them to tell their Albany stories or express their
dreams for their city in a creative way. Among the possible venues for the citizens of Albany to
share their experience would be something similar to a story slam with a theme of “My Best
and/or Worst Memories of Albany,” or “My Perfect Day in the City;” or a Pecha Kucha, where
people go through a series of images (20 slides narrated for 20 seconds each) to let us know
what they think of their city and what they aspire to; or a walk-along where we follow a citizen
through a day in the life of Albany. In the Process Design, we will map out the best targets for
such exercises and set the stage for them to take place.
REV will help us to curate and generate a web-based document, or ‘visual essay’ that
demonstrates through data, maps, photography and video the challenges and opportunities
local citizens identify within their city. We will also draw out and pay attention to voices that do
not often get heard in such forums by recruiting beyond the usual activist/advocate participants
and through social media such as crowdsourcing.
2) Tactical Testing
Even as we are gathering the stories of Albany’s residents and leaders, we would start the
process of “Experience Design,” communicating concepts and testing them. We imagine a
brain trust of innovative urbanists and designers presenting their ideas for enlivening the city
in a series of lectures in the vein of Ted Talks. In addition to inviting the public to learn about
how people are thinking about cities today by attending these talks, we would recruit an action
team for each topic, either from among those already formed in Albany or of residents who
take an interest in issues specific to the topic, such as bicycle activists, housing specialists,
greenspace advocates or retailers. In turn, they would work with the planning team to devise an
intervention in the City based on the concept presented and the action group’s determination
of how it would look in Albany and the highest impact location in the study area. These