University of Missouri Extension specialists and 10 architecture students from Drury University recently developed a long-range community vision for the town of Webb City in southwest Missouri.
Once they had been vibrant places to do business, shop, eat and socialize. Today, many downtowns in Missouri are almost forgotten. Economic development plans to revitalize downtowns are often too expensive for communities already strapped for resources, but several Missouri towns are getting outside help to develop a blueprint of what their downtown could look like over the next 25 years.
"What this does is take something that would normally be pie-in-the-sky and puts it into a blueprint form," said architect Jeff Barber, MU Extension housing and environmental design specialist.
Reviewed 2013-02-18