Community Development Cooperative

  Past Projects

yourcommunitys.info

Community Sustainability

To help stimulate ideas in the minds of the general public, for the Redford Parks and Recreation 5 year plan, the Community Development Cooperative obtained the rights to multiple video productions. The videos cover ideas like community gardening, urban forestry, bike routes, etc. that other communities have tried. The Parks Department was soliciting ideas from the community and the Cooperative wanted to encourage the public to participate. With the help of the local cable company, Bright House, the videos were shown on the public access channel and "on-demand", in both Redford and Livonia. This project is expandable to other communities. This is the local newspapers article in regards to the project- sustainabilityarticle.pdf

Redford Parks 5 Year Plan

The State of Michigan requires community's to put a 5 year plan in place for their parks and recreation departments if they are to apply for grants from the State. Considering the current conditon of Redford, the Parks 5 year plan can be an important tool to make people want to move into Redford instead of out of it. The Cooperative provided ideas for the Parks Commissions review. The idea behind the proposals was to think outside the box at all the possibilities to make a difference in the community. A copy of the proposals can be downloaded from coopparks5yearplan.pdf . The Five Year Plan can be downloaded from redford5yearplan.pdf

I-96 Expressway Rebuild

The Michigan Department of Transportation has a main objective of moving people in vehicles, regardless of the cost to the local community. One hundred and fifty million dollars is going to be spent on a rebuild of the I-96 expressway running through Redford and Livonia. It is an opportunity to maximize the investment to enhance the local communities, as they struggle with declining economic bases and population.- Too see the proposal: Expressway.pdf

Community Statistics

In order to solve problems they must first be defined and in order to define them information must be available. Redford lives in an "ignorance is bliss environment". If crime statistics, fire rescue statistics, fire run statistics, how many people use a park, where drug use is a problem, etc. then everything must be O.K. That is not the case. This type of governmental philosophy only lends itself to letting the community be "blind-sided" by problems that the leadership never saw coming. The only benefit is it lets the citizenery think everything is fine and the leadership is doing a good job.Problems can not be defined without the information to define them. To see graphs of various community indicators - CommunityStatistics.pdf