Envisioning Community:  Carolina North Through Student Eyes

Welcome to the website for “Envisioning Community,” a first-year undergraduate seminar offered by the Department of City and Regional Planning in spring 2006 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

The course was taught by Professor Judith Wegner, with the help of teaching assistant Christopher Clark.  The exceptional students in the course included those pictured below, whose work can be reached through the links at the left.

The course sought to explore key questions including:

• How do we understand “community” as a concept used to describe towns, neighborhoods, universities, and other forms of social interaction?

• How does policy making about land development take into account theoretical concepts of “community” including those rooted in the social sciences, law, urban planning, and higher education? 

• How does planning for the future of a particular locale (Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and UNC) build upon the reality of “local knowledge” and vision for the future? 

The course used the proposed “Carolina North” project that the University proposes to construct on the “Horace Williams Tract” as a “field of dreams” in which visions of “community” might be realized. 

This website was created by the class as a form of service-learning in order to facilitate community deliberations about the future of the Horace Williams Tract.  Each student selected a topic relevant to the proposed Carolina North project and sought to illuminate that topic by exploration of the current situation, relevant studies and research, future trends, and implications for the proposed development.

While this website was completed on May 1, 2006, it will be updated from time to time to assist the community’s efforts to grapple with related issues.