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__Thesis Brief - 'World Peace' Option__ This project is an urban oasis consisting of housing (single- and multifamily), a community center, and multiuse educational building in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago. In addition to Englewood's gang and drug problems, residents must increasingly live with substandard housing. Homes contaminated with lead-based paint and other toxins are common, dilapidated and ill-repaired buildings more so. By creating this oasis, I hope to bring about small change in the community by making large changes in the lives of a few families. The oasis will provide its residents with a healthier place to live, a safer and more appropriate school for their younger children, a home to community groups, and improved infrastructure such as streetlights and public green spaces. Because Englewood already has devoted, tenacious residents and a sense of community, I will work primarily with the vacant lots and abandoned or dilapidated buildings, and will leave the sound, livable homes as-is. This is not about clear-cutting a slum (Englewood is not one), it is an insertion into the existing neighborhood. In order to combat the perception of Englewood as in a state of terminal decline, I want to work with the neighborhood to determine buildable solutions to social problems. Some of the issues I hope to address and combat are gang recruitment, violent crime, vandalism, and population decline. By educating children, providing them with a safe space, and exposing them to Truth (education) and Beauty (evidence-based, positive design), I hope to help steer the area's youth toward higher pursuits. In encouraging a more connected, village-like experience, I hope to help the neighborhood put an end to the waves of crime and vandalism. The ultimate goal is to allow those who fled Englewood for safer neighborhoods to return to a safer and healthier home.

__Goals - 'World Peace' Option__ - To provide a higher standard of living for the people of Englewood - To provide a permanent home for community-betterment organizations - To create a more challenging, relevant school program that provides more opportunities for its students than they would otherwise have - To provide a safe, gang- and drug-free gathering place for local children & teenagers - To use sustainable, evidence-based design in the construction of beautiful Chicago homes - To preserve the existing neighborhood fabric wherever possible - To create 'global' change by working 'locally' - To allow former Englewood residents to return home

NOTES: This still isn't exactly what I want to say here. I think this format is making me get too concrete too quickly.

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