Year
2024

Client
Elm City Communities
The Glendower Group

Collaborators
Inclusive Economic Development Lab
Yale School of Management

This neighborhood analysis, developed using a combination of GIS analysis and field observation, supports Elm City Communities / Glendower Group’s HUD-funded Choice Neighborhood planning process. The assessment was focused on an area referred to as the Union Square neighborhood, a dense, diverse, low-income neighborhood located adjacent to downtown and centered on the historic Union Station, comprising parts of the historical Hill and West River neighborhoods. The assessment will be used as part of a larger planning process to guide the redevelopment of the now-infamous Church Street South public housing project, which was demolished to make way for new construction in 2021.

The assessment is broken down into three sections. Section I, the Union Square Neighborhood, details the context, history, human characteristics and demographics, and affordability of the neighborhood. Section II: Patterns of Investment and Disinvestment describes physical and economic characteristics of the neighborhood, including housing characteristics and where investments are being made and where they are not. Section III: Union Square Neighborhood Assets presents a series of descriptions and asset maps organized on specific themes that illustrate the range of establishments, institutions, and organizations that make up the neighborhood.