Renewing the Countryside is a nonprofit organization that strengthens rural areas by championing and supporting rural communities, farmers, artists, entrepreneurs, educators, activists and other people who are renewing the countryside through sustainable and innovative initiatives, businesses, and projects.

In 2022-23, CURA partnered with Renewing the Countryside and a student researcher to study agricultural easements as a policy tool to preserve agricultural land in Minnesota. Agricultural easements protect the long-term viability of the nation’s food supply by preventing conversion of productive working lands…

Hennepin County contracted with CURA to convene an Anti-Displacement Work Group that centered community voices and brought together diverse stakeholders to study and recommend anti-displacement strategies to help ensure the value of light rail will benefit current corridor residents, and minimize physical, cultural, and economic displacement.

After meeting for more than a year, the work group published their recommendations in May 2023 for public review.

Read the recommendations report

Blue Line Extension Anti-…

Below is a roundup of project descriptions and partner organizations for the Fall 2022 semester Kris Nelson Community-Based Research Program projects. The projects will run from early September to mid-January. If you want to be informed about upcoming deadlines for the Kris Nelson Program, make sure to subscribe to CURA’s newsletter.

Researcher: Amanda L. Sullivan (Department of Educational Psychology, College of Education and Human Development)

Efficiently, effectively identifying and supporting multiply minoritized P12 students with educational difficulties is increasingly challenging for educational systems nationally, and in Minnesota in particular, given complex issues related to our racial and economic disparities. This project will explore the intersections of two especially vulnerable populations: students who experience housing insecurity and students with disabilities. Research underscores a number of challenges related to the identification of both groups, and these difficulties…

Researcher: Di Zhu (Geography, Environment and Society, College of Liberal Arts)

The geography of a community is not constrained by administrative boundaries. It is in essence, comprised of residents who routinely move around and interact with others, often beyond their local spatial context. One of the most challenging problems in community planning is understanding how fine-grained local regions are irregularly and dynamically organized by human movements. In partnership with MN Compass, Move Minnesota, and local planning agencies, this project will propose an integrated data-driven analytical framework to sense dynamic community structures within the Twin…

CURA’s Public Policy Design Lab worked with Restaurant Opportunities Center of Minnesota (ROC-MN) and Minneapolis-based artist Gina Pena to create a visualization of The Rice Activity: Contextualizing the Working Class. This activity was developed through an earlier research project conducted by a UMN Graduate Research Assistant (supported by CURA’s Kris Nelson Community-Based Research Program ) working with ROC-MN.

This visualization is based on a hands-on version of the…

Background

The METRO Blue Line Extension Light Rail Transit project will extend the existing Blue Line from Target Field Station in Minneapolis northwest to Brooklyn Park and connect communities along the way. The communities along the way include North Minneapolis, Robbinsdale, Crystal, and Brooklyn Park. Currently, the project is deciding between two alignments in North Minneapolis. Around this alignment work, CURA has been contracted by Hennepin County and the Metropolitan Council to lead the Blue Line Extension Anti-Displacement Project. This project serves to lead the community through a project to examine the extent to which displacement is or will…

Hennepin County Board of Commissioners approved a contract with the Center of Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) to establish an Anti-Displacement Workgroup related to the design and construction of the METRO Blue Line Extension light rail. This action to invest in anti-displacement is intended to support corridor residents, businesses, and equitable development in the corridor.

…

Workgroup will comprise diverse perspectives

With community input, the project team designed an initial work plan, and local groups submitted proposals for the contract. A committee with corridor community and business…

We believe that support and fair treatment of individuals with criminal records is fundamental for a functioning society. The fact that our criminal justice systems create disparities means our society is not working properly. Criminal records impact individuals and families far beyond the punishment of a crime and keep people from living a good life, which everyone has a right to.

Project Goals

As a project-based initiative, we seek projects and work that align with our values and goals to support our mission and vision. 

Many 911 systems in the United States use older technologies that struggle to account for the diverse ways of communicating during an emergency or disaster, and dispatchers taking calls must make rapid decisions based on limited information. While newer technology can identify callers’ locations, there is an opportunity to explore how technology can assist in determining the reason for the call and suggesting appropriate responses.

Given this opportunity, HUP recently coordinated a connection between Hennepin County and Professors Tom Fisher (College of…