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Sculptures Rise in Iowa, Distract From City's Woes

Posted by: Tim Halbur

1 November 2009 - 9:00am

A Des Moines venture capitalist and his wife have donated a reported $40 million worth of large public sculptures for a sculpture park, part of a significant redevelopment effort by the city.

"It is the latest major project in a broad redevelopment, started in 1991, of Des Moines’s downtown, which used to bustle during weekdays with insurance and government workers but fell quiet soon after 5 p.m. That has been gradually changing over the past few years, especially with the opening of a new public library, a science center and an events center, as well as a burst of commercial and residential development.

While the recession has slowed the makeover, the sculpture park is providing a cheerful, even optimistic, counterpoint to the economic gloom, as well as to the destruction across Iowa by floods and tornadoes in 2008."

Full Story: Cure for Urban Blight: Plant Lots of Sculpture
Source: The New York Times, October 30, 2009
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If hundreds of people in your community raised reasonable concerns about a planning program you developed, how would you respond? Perhaps you might call a community meeting, or ask community elected officials to reach out to community leaders.
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