Community Planning: Alum Rock Corridor
The Alum Rock corridor of East San Jose is facing enormous development pressure. As home to some of the only affordable housing and business space left in Silicon Vlley, residents and business owners alike are concerned about displacement. In recent years, over 50 local family-owned businesses have been forced to close.
This year, CommUniverCity partnered with the City of San Jose’s District 5 office, Futuro de Alum Rock, and SJSU studnets to undertake a cooperative effort in performing a robust community assessment along the Alum Rock corridor. This Fall, more than 80 attendees participated in 6 separate activities led by the students designed to raise awareness of development issues in the community and solicit the feedback of residents. Residents spoke the need to improve infrastructure, schools, transportation, and overall safety in underutilized areas. The graduate student team in Spring continued the work of the Fall class by focusing on the amenities and neighborhood improvements that are important
to the residents, with the purpose of developing a comprehensive list of potential amenity investments for new developers. Due to COVID-19 and investments for new developers. Due to COVID-19 and the shelter-in-place order, the graduate student team pivoted engagement methods to remote video sessions and one-on-one phone interviews.
A special thanks goes to the community, the Alum Rock Urban Village Advocates, and our partners within the City of San Jose, the office of District 5 Councilmember Magdalena Carrasco, the city’s Department of Housing, Department of Transportation, and the Department of Planning, School of Arts and Culture at the Mexican Heritage Plaza, SOMOS Mayfair, Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County and AARP.
Project Impacts
84% of residents indicated their communication with the students helped them learn something new about their own community and further illuminated issues that were important to them
On 2020, the American Planning Association’s Northern California Chapter awarded the faculty-student Fall ’18/Spring ’19 Urban Planning team the 2020 Academic Award of Excellence
86% of students agreed the project improved their research and analysis skills to solve real world issues
Students Engaged
Residents Engaged
Hours of Student Service
Value
Faculty Lead
Rick Kos & Jason Su (Urban and Regional Planning)