CIVITAS.design, Back to Erie, Inc., is a social sculpture collaborative that has been undertaking aesthetic and functional interventions in public space since 2004. CIVITAS members are: Lisa Austin, Micheal Beightol, Roland Slade, Steve Sonnenberg, Laurel Swartz and Adam Trott.
CIVITAS has initiated and co-founded: All Aboard Erie transportation advocacy, Considering the City column at the Erie Reader, Connect Urban Erie community group, ErieCPR effort to save the Viaduct, Erie Public Square on zoom, ERIwe group to bring Undesign the Redline to ERie, Innovation Erie Product Design Competition at the Erie Art Museum, Innovation Erie Product Design Lab at the Blasco Library, Made in Erie Marketplace at the Masonic Temple Camelot Room, Preservation Erie (initially the Erie Center for Design & Preservation), Preservation Happy Hour at the Plymouth Tavern, Rethink the McBride Viaduct, the Save the Villa Chapel committee and charettes for Villa Chapel, Roosevelt Middle School and the Edinboro University Boiler House as well as a Connected City event at the Booker T Washington, a Viaduct Town Hall at the Jefferson Educational Society and the Erie Bayfront Town Hall on zoom. CIVITAS efforts have led to two federal lawsuits regarding socially unjust and environmentally unsound urban design decisions in Erie, the city named “the worst” for African-Americans in 2017.
Over the past 17 years, CIVITAS has organized and co-organized (and funded and co-funded) more than a hundred events including: clean ups, art shows, art events, poetry readings, walking tours, workshops, charrettes, planning meetings, panel discussions, town halls, interviews and lectures. In addition to donating their time, talent and cash, CIVITAS has organized and co-organized dozens of fundraisers and sponsor campaigns bringing in more than $50,000 to assist in these community projects. CIVITAS has been responsible for bringing renowned speakers, writers and photographers to Erie including: April DeSimone, Mindy Thompson Fullilove, Toni L. Griffin, Micheal Kimmelman, Philip Langdon, William Lebovich, Charles McKinney, Ed McMahon, John O. Norquist, Monica Rhodes, Terry Schwarz, Charles D. Warren, Damon Winters.
CIVITAS has published over three dozen essays in the Erie Times-News and in Erie Reader including a monthly “Considering the City” column for three years. CIVITAS been an invited presenter at dozens of regional venues, several universities and as a minor speaker at the 2019 Highline Symposium held at the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice in New York City.
CIVITAS members are inspired by the work of the early 20th century planner, John Nolen, the inspirational critic Jane Jacobs, the 21st century “town shrink,” Dr. Mindy Thompson Fullilove and the Congress for the New Urbanism.
CNU inspired CIVITAS
INSPIRATION: The Charter of the Congress for the New Urbanism let us to found CIVITAS (Back to Erie, Inc.) in 2004.
JOHN NOLEN inspired CIVITAS
INSPIRATION: John Nolen's Plan for Greater Erie / In celebration of the centennial of Nolen's 1913 Plan for Greater Erie, CIVITAS (IN 2013) launched a year-long study of Nolen’s masterwork to see if his suggestions are relevant to 21st century Erie. http://archive.org/details/greatererieplan00tradgoog
“- it will invariably be found that utility and beauty go hand in hand and are virtually inseparable.”
JANE JACOBS inspired CIVITAS
INSPIRATION: Jane Jacobs willingness to challenge vehicle-centric plans inspired CIVITAS to challenge our region’s power-elite.
“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.”
MINDY THOMPSON FULLILOVE inspired CIVITAS
Dr. Mindy Thompson Fullilove.
INSPIRATION: After reading the New York Time’s Magazine cover story about Fullilove in June 2015, CIVITAS brought Fullilove to Erie in 2015 to speak at the Booker T. Washington Center to try to help Erie understand how demolition of the Viaduct is an extension of historic redlining.
“If we want to solve the problems of the poor neighborhoods, we must treat the whole city.”
CIVITAS MEMBERS:
Social Sculptor
STEPHEN SONNENBERG
Self-taught Urban Critic
Landscape Architect
LAUREL SWARTZ
Organizer & Reality Checker
Media Director, Commentator / CLEEZE
Architect, AJT Architect
RIGHT: 2005 screen shot of a Go Erie news story on CIVITAS Erie Malleable Iron (EMI) demolition protest. EMA, a hulking 1880 structure of rusticated stone and rich masonry, on W 12th and Cherry Streets, was torn down. An athletic complex, a football field and parking now fill the eastern portion of the EMI site.
