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The Jackson Community Design Center (JCDC) adapts to the needs of the city and provides community design services, project visualization, educational outreach and research/analysis for associations that are working to make a viable, healthy urban environment.
Who We Are
Initiated in 1996 by an endowment from the Phil Hardin Foundation, the Jackson Community Design Center is an urban research laboratory whose mission is to support urban revitalization in Jackson. We are located in the School of Architecture’s Jackson Center on Capitol Street.
What is a mid-size city?
The mid size American city, any metropolitan area that ranges from 100,000 to 1 million people, is home to nearly 30 percent of the current US population. The JCDC’s primary focus is the greater Jackson metropolitan area, which has a population of around 590,000 people, as a means to think about the future of these areas that make up 328 of the 384 metropolitan areas in the US. With the US metropolitan population continuing to grow (.4% in 2022) despite pandemic setbacks, the making of a sustainable future depends on the healthy development of these regions. Currently, growth in mid size metropolitan areas suffer from the convergence of three attitudes: an implicit association of sustainability with rural and suburban types of development, faith in the power of technology to solve every problem, and a fear of cities.
Photo: “Jackson, MS: Downtown Jackson” © Visit Mississippi
What We Do
The Jackson Community Design Center analyzes specified regions of concern through extensive mapping studies and historic analysis of comparable growth trends to inform the most sustainable and feasible methods for development.
The JCDC uses the history and theory of urban design to question the roots of development and evolution patterns in cities. The center provides a service to the city by developing concepts for land use and working regionally to heal socio-economic and municipal divides.