Princeton Future
P.O. Box 1172
Princeton, NJ 08542
Telephone: 609-921-6100
Contact: Marvin Bressler, a Director of the Council of Princeton Future
E-mail: marvin@princeton.edu
Jump to: |
 Description Population Served Research Questions |
Organization Description and Mission
Princeton Future, formed in 2000, is a non-governmental organization that voices the concerns of Princeton residents about the future of the community. Princeton Future is committed to preserving the human scale of Princeton and to dealing effectively and creatively with land use and transportation, neighborhoods and affordable housing, historic preservation and sustainable development, and all the other planning issues affecting social, economic, and physical quality of life. The main goals of Princeton Future are to help the public and the government to preserve neighborhoods and the downtown, to create good plans for future development, to support diversity, and to ensure that citizens enjoy their living conditions. Princeton Future supports dialogue within and between neighborhoods, the downtown, and the surrounding region, and encourages citizens to participate in local government affairs. Princeton Future has created a structure to discuss unforeseen planning conflicts whose outcome may determine, for generations, Princeton’s character and vitality. Among these conflicts have been the creation of the new mixed-used public Square on Witherspoon Street; the future of the Medical Center; the relationship between the Arts Council building and its neighborhood; the renovation of Witherspoon Street; and, the development of Hulfish North and the area fronting Route 206/Bayard Lane between the YM/YWCA and Merwick Hospital.
From the outset, Princeton Future has stressed the need for residents, merchants, and members of the university to have input on plans. Planning should also integrate the downtown with nearby neighborhoods and other parts of the Borough and Township. Princeton Future recognized the importance of creating and sustaining a community based on economic, physical, and social diversity. Princeton Future is concerned with social, economic, physical, environmental, and the humanistic issues involved with planning, regulating and implementation. Princeton Future believes the downtown should offer shops, services, building types, and green spaces that appeal to residents and visitors of all incomes.
Princeton Future established task forces for social and economic development, planning and design, and neighborhood preservation. Residents’ concerns are recorded, categorized, and presented to the Borough and Township governments and to the Regional Planning Board. These efforts have led to the revision of many development plans that have been eventually adopted by the Borough with some modifications. The work of Princeton Future has led to what Town Topics has called a “community self-examination.”Community and Population Served by the Organization
Princeton Future serves the community of people who live, work, and govern in the town and borough of Princeton.
Princeton Future welcomes the contribution of undergraduate students whose term papers and independent work address local and regional issues in the wider world beyond the campus. Applied research informed by a variety of disciplinary perspectives on “real-life” problems can yield intellectual benefits to students and help improve the lives of their fellow residents in the community at large. The specific topics and methods employed are chosen by criteria established by the faculty in each department and are governed by standards for written work established by the University. Princeton Future hopes that some of the resulting analyses, policies, plans and designs will intersect with its own inquiries and activities, which embrace the following major questions:
- How can people at every economic level afford to remain in Princeton without being taxed and priced away?
- How can Princeton remain a thriving town without becoming a quaint curiosity or a suburban sprawl?
- How can the Princeton Township and the Princeton Borough work together for the benefit of all Princetonians?
- How can the town provide tangible expression for its respect for diversity in education, age, gender, sexual orientation, race, religion and ethnicity?
- How can better forms of local public transport and safe pedestrian and bike paths be used to unclog streets, save energy, and protect the future of the environment?
- How can the intellectual resources of the community be mobilized to conduct a house-to-house carbon footprint evaluation as part of a project on creating a more sustainable community in Princeton?
- How can the Princeton community decide whether it needs new ways to achieve its goals including: a Downtown Special Improvement District, a Princeton Transportation and Parking Authority, a Princeton Community
Preservation and Development Corporation?
Princeton Future stands ready to assist students in defining and executing research on any aspect of these and kindred questions or on relevant inquiries of their own choosing.
Continue searching profiles in alphabetical order.
Continue searching profiles by area of interest.
Continue searching profiles by geographic
location.
