Assessing Business Success and Stability in Distressed Neighborhoods – Summer 2015

Habitat for Humanity has begun a process of Neighborhood Revitalization in its service area.  Focusing on the South Central and Thomas Park/Avondale Neighborhoods, changing the look and feel of a critical mass of the residences in the target area can achieve significant impact. One element that has been ignored in many programs to date is the businesses that are located within these target neighborhoods.  The main goal of this project is to survey the businesses in the target revitalization area to determine the characteristics of the neighborhood that are impacting businesses both positively and negatively.

Students will work directly with community leaders to design a survey instrument, conduct in-person interviews and create a report highlighting the perceived needs of surveyed businesses.

  • Students, working in a team, will be responsible for project planning, including establishing timelines, and setting goals.
  • Interns will use communication strategies for interacting with target businesses and other community partners.
  • Students will develop and administer a survey instrument. Surveys will be administered using a personal interview process.
  • Students will enter data and use tools for analyzing data including creating a database and perform basic statistical analyses.
  • Students will prepare a professional report for presentation to Habitat board of directors, staff and community partners.

Energy Planning – Summer 2015

The South Central/Thomas Park-Avondale Energy Plan is a project being developed by residents of South Central/Thomas Park-Avondale and Vectren along with Ball State University graduate students from the Department of Urban Planning. The basis of this project is to create an energy plan for a selected region of the South Central and Thomas Park-Avondale neighborhoods in Muncie, Indiana.

Please visit the plan’s website for more information about the project and the student’s assessment and recommendations.

Class Flier (pdf)