Rosemount Neighborhood and Community Integration

Report completed by students enrolled in SW 8551: Advanced Community Practice: Assessment, Organizing, and Advocacy, taught by Liz Lightfoot in spring 2015.This project was completed as part of a year-long partnership between the City of Rosemount and the University of Minnesota’s Resilient Communities Project (http://www.rcp.umn.edu). The population of the City of Rosemount has nearly doubled in the past decade and has grown increasingly diverse. The City of Rosemount wants to promote community building and identify effective avenues for communication with newer and harder to reach residents of Rosemount, including immigrants and people of color. The goal of this project was to determine the best ways to communicate with racial/ethnic minority resident groups and identify opportunities for the City of Rosemount to build a greater sense of community among all residents. In collaboration with city project lead Alan Cox, Communications Coordinator for the City of Rosemount, a team of students in SW 8551: Advanced Community Practice: Assessment, Organizing, and Advocacy conducted community observations, interviews, and surveys to identify the specific needs of traditionally underrepresented groups in Rosemount and identify strategies to support healthy neighborhood cohesion among residents, as well as integration of neighborhoods into the larger Rosemount community. A final report from the project is available.This project was supported by the Resilient Communities Project (RCP), a program at the University of Minnesota that convenes the wide-ranging expertise of U of M faculty and students to address strategic local projects that advance community resilience and sustainability. RCP is a program of the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA). More information at http://www.rcp.umn.ed