SLU Class Models How to Build a Community

SLU Class Models How to Build a Community

In Bob Lewis' classroom, you might think you'd wandered into a kindergarten. Students scatter into small groups to build with Lego bricks. They walk around the neighborhood for a scavenger hunt. They read the classic children's book Make Way for Ducklings for homework.

But this isn't an elementary school - it's Saint Louis University. And the seemingly simple lessons lead students to a richer college experience that sets them up for real-world success.

In "Planning the American City," Lewis draws on years as an assistant professor at SLU and decades as a city planner in St. Louis to help students understand what goes into a thriving community. In the process, they develop skills of observation, research and problem-solving while creating a community of their own.

The semester builds toward the UrbanPlan, an immersive activity created by the Urban Land Institute that Lewis has used with students at the high-school, college and graduate-school levels. Students form planning teams, and each student takes a role: financial analyst, site planner, environmental and equity analyst, marketing director and neighborhood liaison. The project? A proposal to redevelop a blighted area.

Then they get out the Legos - literally building their vision into a model of six city blocks - and enter their data into a financial model. They must balance city and developer goals, community requests and design, all while keeping the project financially viable.

"It was eye-opening," Duke Henderson, a finance major, said. "As the financial analyst, I learned my perspective was extremely narrow. I was looking for the best possible numbers - but not considering past the numbers into how the neighborhood would actually function."

The process can be frustrating and challenging, requiring collaboration and negotiation. Amber Dantzler, who's pre-med at SLU, said the teamwork aspect was the most challenging and rewarding part.

"I've worked on teams before, but not like this," she said. "This was six people in front of a huge schematic with multiple spreadsheets in front of us, trying to balance big-scale stuff with small-scale stuff."

Dantzler wants to be a doctor, not a city planner. But she said the skills will transfer. "I feel a lot more prepared for working in a hectic, complicated team setting."

When the teams' proposals are ready, they present to a "city council" of professionals from the St. Louis planning and development communities.

The team that wins the contract wins giant candy bars from Lewis. (And because this is a class and not real-life real estate, the runners-up get regular-sized candy bars.) Everyone gains better awareness of the city around them, the work it takes to make it function well, and their possible place in it.

"A lot of consideration goes into the way our cities are structured, and every decision influences the way we live," said Rhianna Li, an economics and business technology management student who took Lewis' class.

Dantzler enjoyed the class so much, she joined SLU on the Move, a club that advocates for new urbanist design.

"The class made me really happy to live here and make it better in little ways that I can," she said.

"Planning the American City" fulfills a requirement of SLU's core curriculum and is one of more than 50 Ignite Seminars, which are designed to introduce first-year students to SLU's distinctive, transformative classroom approach and to "ignite" intellectual wonder.