Winter 1999
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In this issue Iowa Institute for Public Leadership brings state officials together Extension strengthens low-resource families Modern Johnny Appleseed sows technology Kids dig in the dirt and grow in the garden
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Iowa's roadways gain appeal Imagine driving down an Iowa highway into a small town when the roadside is swathed with colorful flowers and green trees. Imagination is becoming reality through Iowa's Living Roadways program, in which local leaders are empowered to create and carry out a community vision.
Iowa's Living Roadways program provides integrated facilitation, planning, design and implementation so that communities are more effective in organizing and building roadside projects, said program developer Julia Badenhope, ISU Extension's landscape architecture specialist. The program helps head off potential conflicts between installing new ornamental landscaping and potentially destroying ecologically significant rare plants by spotlighting the importance of prairie remnants in the planning process. The Iowa Department of Transportation, the Federal Highway Administration, Trees Forever, Inc., landscape architecture professionals and ISU Extension formed this partnership to integrate ecological knowledge into local planning and design. The program has two phases &emdash; community visioning and community projects. Communities with populations under 10,000 can apply. In the visioning phase, community members look at the "big picture," conceptualize potential changes and pick a specific area to work on. ISU Extension uses state-of-the-art computer visualization techniques to provide display materials for the community. "Our visioning plan is just going before our city officials and will be displayed for residents this winter," said Hampton resident Constance Buxton. "This has been an excellent way to bring in people who have not been involved in these kinds of efforts in the past. We all gain from this." The project phase provides funding to rural communities for landscape improvement projects. Completing the visioning phase is not required to access these funds. About $500,000 is expended annually on planning, design
and facilitation, while about $600,000 is expended annually
on construction costs, Badenhope said. Seventy percent of
the funding is awarded annually through competitive grants,
while the balance comes from local and state funds. The
program is funded through Oct. 1, 1999. |
