It’s Thursday night and the buzz of conversation rises above the clinking of pint glasses at Alliance Brewing Company on Sevier Avenue. Teams huddle around tables with maps and magic markers. This is DESIGNSLAM!, a rapidfire charette showdown where five teams of architects, planners and planning-curious citizens have just 60 minutes to reimagine a slice of Knoxville’s urban landscape.
Teams are given a surprise prompt then unleashed with one shared goal: to imagine better spaces. Dustin Durham, executive director of AIA East Tennessee and founder of Yes! Knoxville (this year’s DESIGNSLAM! host), puts it like this: “When you get a bunch of people with creative tendencies in a room solving a problem, you would be fascinated by the ideas you never thought possible.”
This year’s prompt involves an evergreen urban planning muse: the South Waterfront. Teams have two options, which are to design southside landing zones for 1) the future pedestrian bridge, or 2) the Gay Street Bridge. By night’s end, winning ideas will be crowned, but the more important takeaway is the message the event sends: In Knoxville, the future is a group project.
The purpose of DESIGNSLAM!, Durham says, is twofold: “One, we want to inspire people and remind them of what can be. Because I think too often, especially in a city of our size, we are constrained in our imagination for what we can aspire to be. Building on that is, essentially, collective action. We also want to inspire them to work together to demand better.”
Speak Now or Complain Later
Nobody wants to feel like a city is happening to them. You want your needs and priorities to be met, or at the very least, heard and considered. The only way that happens, of course, is to speak up—a strategy that’s 100% more effective before decisions are made than after the fact.
Historically, Knoxville hasn’t always been the best listener. Collaboration just wasn’t the norm, and the systems to support it didn’t really exist. But over the past 25 years, a shift has taken hold, away from top-down planning and toward citizen-driven visioning. These days, it’s rare for a major city initiative to move forward without some kind of community input baked in.
One real-time example: This morning, I filled out a public survey to help inform the Knoxville Parks & Recreation Master Plan (and you can, too!). It invites citizens to weigh in on priorities for our parks, programs and greenways. As someone who spends a lot of time in parks, it felt like a small but meaningful way to shape the city our family lives in. Whether you want more swim classes, better greenways, or a Ferris wheel in Lakeshore Park (now I’m just putting ideas in your head), nobody’s going to read your mind. If you don’t speak up, your voice won’t be counted.
There are design conversations taking place all the time, all around us. I recently spoke with Duane Grieve, executive director of the East Tennessee Community Design Center (ETCDC), a 55-year-old nonprofit that provides professional design assistance through volunteer teams of architects, planners, landscape designers and developers. Their mission: envision best-use futures for spaces that matter to the community.
One of their biggest engines for that work is The Community Collaborative—an annual, multi-partner initiative that picks a local focus area or challenge, digs into the history, gathers input from the people who live and work there, and helps shape what the future could look like. It all wraps up in a public event and a report full of research, designs and ideas that can go on to influence policy, planning and development.
In recent years, the Collaborative’s projects have included the Burlington Enhancement Plan (2019), the Sutherland Avenue “Most Eclectic Street” vision (2020), the MLK Jr. Avenue Corridor Master Plan (2021) and the North Broadway Corridor (2023). An upcoming Collaborative will focus on the old Sears building in the Happy Holler area of Central Avenue. These aren’t just hypothetical design exercises—they’re community-informed roadmaps for real change.
At the heart of it all is input from the people who know these places best. “We hold community input meetings with stations set up around the room,” says Grieve. “There are specific questions and images, and we ask folks to weigh in on what matters most to them. Then we take all of that and share it with the design team.”
Grieve emphasizes the importance of reaching out to everyone potentially impacted, and I’ve got to give the city a shout-out here. I’ve seen the Parks & Rec survey I mentioned above at playgrounds, city events, on social media, here at DESIGNSLAM!, and even in our neighborhood newsletter. If the goal was to make sure families like ours saw it, they’ve definitely done their homework.
Grieve points to those recent Community Collaborative projects as examples of where citizen input helped drive the design from day one. “What’s good about the community input sessions is that they engage the public, and they become part of it,” he says. “It’s not just us writing something up and saying, ‘This is what ought to be done.’ Their input actually shapes the design.”
Sure, it takes more time and effort to build consensus. But when people are involved early, they’re more invested. They feel seen. They’re more likely to support the end result. “It gives people a sense of buy-in,” Grieve says. “It’s also just good transparency. And then, frankly, when it’s all said and done, if someone complains, the first question is: well, did you participate?”
A Brief (Just Kidding) History of Citizen Visioning
The rest of this story outlines, in fairly tedious and microscopic detail, how we got to where we are today. If you’re not into it, no offense. But if you are … I offer forth the DESIGNSLAM! winners as an Easter egg at the end.
To begin talking about this stuff, you have to zoom back 25+ years, to the late ‘90s and early 2000s. As a grim reminder, downtown Knoxville at this time was a dusty ghost town compared to its vibrant, bustling present. For the most part, people came to work their 9-to-5s and then scattered at 5 p.m. like somebody shouted ‘free beer’ somewhere else.
Meanwhile, our neighbor Chattanooga was looking like the belle of the ball with its hotshot aquarium, mile-long pedestrian bridge and fancy electric buses. Its downtown seemed to be firing on all cylinders: prosperous, invested-in, lived-in, engaged. What were they doing differently?
For one, they’d already been at it for a while. Around 1984—just as Knoxville was waking up to its World’s Fair hangover that we had built our best approximation of an iconic skyscraper in a hole—Chattanooga was launching Vision 2000, a strategic planning initiative led by community-visioning guru Gianni Longo.
Maybe, some thought, all we needed was a “silver bullet” attraction to turn things around. The late ’90s and early 2000s were full of ambitious proposals like Renaissance Knoxville, a downtown master plan from Worsham Watkins that memorably suggested fitting “an unobtrusive glass dome” over Market Square. Then came Universe Knoxville, also from Worsham Watkins, which hinged on building a $116 million planetarium downtown (which, IMO, actually would have been pretty cool).
But while Chattanooga had used ongoing public conversations to define what it wanted to become, Knoxville’s future was still largely being shaped by a small group of city officials and developers. The old model went something like: “Here’s what we’ve decided to do—hope you like it.” Public input meant a public hearing, not a public conversation.
That started to shift in 1999, when Longo was tapped again—this time not for a downtown plan, but for a regional visioning effort called Nine Counties. One Vision. Knoxville was at the center of those counties. With Lynne Fugate at the helm, the initiative aimed to shift the needle of regional planning from “them” to “us.” Over five years, it drew in about 6,000 participants who generated thousands of ideas, hundreds of strategies, 27 task forces and dozens of community goals.
At first, people were skeptical. Nicknames included One County. Nineteen Visions. and Nine Counties. One Bear Hug. Some wondered if it was a backdoor attempt to override local government; others weren’t sure what the endgame was. But at its heart, the effort was simple: to ask the community what it wanted to be. And once people understood that, they got engaged. And when people get engaged, they participate. And when they participate, things start to change.
Unlike Chattanooga’s Vision 2000, the results of Nine Counties. One Vision. weren’t especially tangible in the brick-and-mortar sense. But it marked a paradigm shift in how decisions were made. It helped seed a culture of participatory planning in Knoxville. Now, residents expected to be involved. They demanded transparency. They wanted their voices heard.
The Internet Has Entered the Chat
At the same time that visioning efforts were shifting, another monumental change was unfolding: people discovered they could use the internet to talk to each other. Imagine that.
By the late ‘90s and into the very early 2000s, a local listserv called k2k was buzzing with debate over proposals like Renaissance and Universe Knoxville. It became a hub for educating yourself, hashing it out with neighbors and mobilizing resistance with a speed and scale that was unprecedented.
It used to be that a handful of folks had access to all the information, and using that information, they made decisions on behalf of the community. And the community, by and large, trusted them to do so. But in the digital age, everyone had access. With the click of a button, anyone with an interest could become an expert—sometimes more of one than their elected officials.
Proposals like Renaissance and Universe Knoxville were developed behind closed doors and presented as done deals. There was little opportunity for input, and many residents felt those plans didn’t reflect their needs or values. Despite their differences, the projects shared one fatal flaw: they were top-down solutions rolled out as prepackaged, one-size-fits-all visions. And the public wasn’t buying it.
In the end, neither project took off. Some credited their downfall to the strength of public resistance galvanized by k2k. Officially, the city chalked it up to logistical and financial challenges. Either way, it was clear that the public process had found its voice—and it wasn’t afraid to use it. The city had to reevaluate its approach.
In the wake of those failed projects, the city hired consulting firm Crandall Arambula to compile, through a series of public input sessions, a more down-to-earth assessment of what downtown needed to pull itself out of the slump into which it’d been steadily sinking. Not every idea made it into the light (RIP to the outdoor living room proposed for the corner of Gay and Locust), but some—especially the push for residential development—took root. Crandall Arambula was also the first to call out the importance of the South Waterfront.
Meanwhile in Market Square, Chattanooga developers Kinsey Probasco Hays came in with a more modest, nuts-and-bolts approach to redevelopment. Nothing sexy—just digging up old concrete to replace decaying electrical lines and plumbing. But it was the first step toward bringing the Square back to life. And for the first time, the process was public.
Public process was something new Mayor Bill Haslam seemed to understand. Same for Bill Lyons, then the city’s senior policy director, who was tasked with shepherding Market Square’s redevelopment forward. Lyons recognized that local political culture had shifted and that getting buy-in from the public wasn’t just about optics—it was essential to getting the best possible outcome. If you were plugged into k2k back then, you may remember Lyons jumping into online conversations, responding directly to citizen posts. He met people where they were, digitally and philosophically.
There’s no one-size-fits-all model for public participation—it depends on the context. At the very least, it requires transparency, but higher-stakes or more visible projects often call for deeper engagement. Some initiatives, like Krutch Park’s redesign, needed hands-on collaboration between developers and community members, while more technical or legally complex efforts might be better served through council briefings or media explainers.
That project also serves as a reminder of one of public process’ downsides: the potential emergence of a groupthink or bandwagon mentality. For a few years after Krutch Park’s renovation, you’d hear people grumble that “the city paved Krutch Park over”—pointing to the removal of its wrought-iron fencing and a thinning of its vegetation. What most didn’t realize was that those were public ideas, generated and selected during input sessions designed to make the park feel more open and safe. If there was opposition, it either didn’t show up or got persuaded otherwise.
Change Ripples Outward
Public input isn’t magic. It won’t solve every problem or leave everyone walking away high-fiving. Some projects stir up tension, drag on and on, and end in a compromise that satisfies no one. Sometimes the final product still gets side-eyed decades later. But if the goal is to build a better city, then public participation—even the messy, uncomfortable kind—is part of the deal.
Take Cumberland Avenue (so help me God in the comments section). Everyone agreed it needed help—too cluttered, too chaotic, too tired. But agreeing on what to do about it? That was trickier. The Strip serves residents, students, businesses and hospitals, each with their own priorities. Success meant threading the needle between them all.
Jeff Welch, then director of the Knoxville Regional Transportation Planning Organization, led the charge for community input. One simple but effective tactic: a studio space where people could sketch their ideas, jot down notes, and interact directly with the consultants—no PowerPoints, no podiums. Just a chance to contribute. In the end, the results are mixed. Some people still love what came of it. Others? Not so much. It may have been an impossible puzzle, but at least everyone got to help work on it.
And then there was the Broadway-Fifth Task Force—a whole different level of complexity. When the Volunteer Ministry Center proposed turning a Fifth Avenue Hotel into housing for the unhoused, nearby residents and business owners pushed back hard. Tensions ran high. Accusations flew. The room was more than divided; it felt ready to combust.
Sticky notes weren’t going to cut it. The task force had to shift gears. They created space for people to speak candidly—sometimes uncomfortably—about their fears, frustrations and hopes. The goal wasn’t kumbaya. It was clarity. Humanity. A shared vision everyone could live with, even if no one was fully satisfied.
By the end of the summer, they had something. A plan that balanced safe neighborhoods, strong local businesses and compassionate support for unhoused people. Was it perfect? No. Was it hard? Absolutely. But it was built out of honesty and participation. And that mattered.
Of all Knoxville’s planning efforts, the South Waterfront Vision Plan may be the clearest example of public process earning back trust. The path wasn’t easy—especially given the long shadow of failed attempts that came before it.
In the early ’90s, a plan to designate the area west of Chapman Highway and along Scottish Pike a development district collapsed spectacularly. The process had been largely closed-door, and with information scarce, rumors spread fast—especially the fear that the city might seize property through eminent domain. Residents felt excluded and threatened. The plan never stood a chance. What lingered was a deep sense of mistrust.
So when a new administration revisited the idea more than a decade later, in 2004, they knew they were walking into a room full of skepticism. People hadn’t forgotten what it felt like to be left out of the conversation.
This time, the approach was completely different.
A new feasibility study laid the groundwork, but the real shift came in how the city chose to engage the public. Instead of a few carefully managed meetings, the process was broad, visible and continuous. A series of three large-scale public workshops provided the foundation, supplemented by countless neighborhood meetings and a dedicated drop-in center where residents could pop in, get updates and voice concerns.
People showed up in record numbers. And not just to listen—they came to participate. Their ideas were collected, synthesized, and—crucially—woven into the actual draft of the plan. The result wasn’t perfect. It never is. But it was proof that the process was real.
Not everyone agreed with everything, and some folks still had critiques about communication gaps or the complexity of zoning language. But even among critics, there was a sense that the process had been handled with seriousness, sincerity and a real commitment to compromise.
In 2006, after nearly two years of work, the final presentation of the South Waterfront Vision Plan drew more than 600 people—and a standing ovation. City Council unanimously adopted the South Waterfront Form-Based Development Code. Because it had been so thoroughly vetted on the front end, the vote passed with ease.
It wasn’t just the plan that changed. The process changed. The tone changed. The shift from they’re doing this to us to we’re building this together was palpable.
Fast-Forward Two Decades
And here we are again, in the year of our lord 2025. I’m sipping a hazy IPA at DESIGNSLAM! at Alliance Brewing—which, 10 years ago, was a laundromat on a sleepy stretch of Sevier Avenue. Now it’s surrounded by patios, people and possibility. What a long way the South Waterfront has come.
So I ask around: Has it lived up to the vision we dreamed up 20 years ago?
The answer? Mostly yes. Maybe it didn’t stick exactly to the foam-core renderings. Maybe it wandered. There were surges of progress, stretches of silence, and surprises—like the Gay Street Bridge (womp womp). But that’s how cities grow: unevenly, organically and often unexpectedly.
The South Waterfront isn’t finished. And that’s the beauty of it. Cities aren’t static—they’re stories still being written.The real win was the fact that people were invited to help shape it. When community members get to speak up and dream out loud, the result becomes a framework built on shared values: What do we want this place to feel like? Who is it for?
Bonnie Casamassima is a UT interior architecture professor who is volunteering at Yes! Knoxville volunteer this evening. She talks about the participatory process of design as a “How might we…?” question that we get to ask together. “I think at our core as humans we’re hardwired for connection, and we’re hardwired to work together,” she says. “We do it pretty intuitively.” Frameworks or structures like a DESIGNSLAM! help us facilitate that co-creation, she says.
After an hour of sketching and a round of 10-minute pitches, the winners are announced. The teams—full of sharp young folks, many of whom are already working in the field—pitch ideas to a room of designers, elected officials, South Knoxville Waterfront Task Force members and community. Each one is a thought-out, creative original that attempts to satisfy, even elevate, the building blocks of a healthy community: housing, recreation, transportation, sustainability.
The winning team imagines a landing space for future pedestrian bridge. “We’re thinking about, what could the landing be and what could the landing do for the community? What does it mean to have successful cultural public space?” the presenter says. There’s an amphitheatre, bike and pedestrian accessible spaces, farmers market, artists market, “and–this was super contentious–a CVS.” It’s mindful of the neighborhood’s existing residents, but also real: things are going to change.
Ultimately, whether they get built out in some cacacity, or not, they matter. Because they’re a spark. A blueprint for how we keep showing up, imagining and building together.
The best ideas don’t always come from the top. They come from the room. From the table. From the people who care enough to imagine something better—together.