Kansas City, Missouri – Kansas City’s Westside community are coming together again, this time to envision a neighborhood shaped by the people who know it best. The city will hold the Second Community Summit for the Reconnecting the Westside project on Saturday, August 2, from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. at the Tony Aguirre Community Center, located at 2050 W. Pennway Street. Anyone who lives on the Westside can come to the event for free.
This summit is more than just a meeting for the public. It’s a creative event that will help people remember, think about, and hope for things in the neighborhood. PlaceIt Interactive Planning’s James Rojas and John Kamp, who are experts in urban planning, will lead a hands-on session where participants may use storytelling and model-building to express their unique ideas for how their community should look in the future.
Mayor Quinton Lucas highlighted how important it is for everybody in the community to have a say, stating that the inaugural summit showed how emotionally connected citizens are to their neighborhood.
“We can’t erase the highways that divided us, but together, we can design solutions that honor the Westside’s resilient spirit while creating new opportunities for generations to come,” Lucas said.
The Reconnecting the Westside project is part of a bigger Planning and Environmental Linkages (PEL) research that looks at how the I-35 expressway affects the area. The study’s goal is to learn not only about changes in the physical world, but also about the social and economic implications of infrastructure decisions made decades ago. The purpose is to create ways for the community to work together to restore, heal, and grow.
“We don’t just want feedback-we want imagination,” said James Rojas, founder of PlaceIt. “The Westside is a powerful, resilient community. This workshop is about unlocking residents’ ideas, stories, and creativity to guide future planning efforts rooted in local identity.”
Families are especially encouraged to attend, and kids can make their own small models of what their neighborhood could look like in the Kids’ Corner. The city hopes that this strategy, which includes people of all ages, will make sure that the final suggestions include everyone’s voice.
The Reconnecting the Westside team is dedicated to working with residents every step of the way. Their goal is clear: to build a future that is molded by the people who live on the Westside, not by those from other places.
Residents can go to ReconnectWestside.com for more information or to get updates on the project.
