The Center for Resilient Metro-Regions (CRM)believes that climate resilience, placemaking and livable cities, public health, justice, and economic development can be synergistic goals and support our communities and our most vulnerable populations. Working at a range of scales, from rural areas to metropolitan regions, CRM partners with communities to develop more resilient and sustainable planning and design solutions. Applied research and strategic planning projects often focus on climate change, land use, urban greening, public space, housing, and low-impact development. CRM’s work is organized as consulting contracts and as class studio projects that provide service-learning opportunities for students and introduce new planning models to communities.
The Center is embedded in Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning (LARP) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. CRM supports LARP’s areas of excellence in community engagement, regenerative urbanism, and regional and greenway planning.
CRM was established in 1985 (then Center for Rural Massachusetts) to undertake applied research on planning, sustainability, and growth management. Measures proposed in Center publications and projects, including the concept of greenways, context based design, and advancing the practice of strategic planning, have been studied and adopted throughout the United States and the world.
CRM Services The Center is a vehicle for Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning (LARP) to undertake service work with communities, from small projects on a scale of a few hundred dollars to large $150,000 and above projects. Through CRM, faculty and students in LARP and affiliated programs have drafted a variety of strategic, subject, and master plans (e.g., open space and recreation plans, downtown urban design, community participation, economic/facility re-use, and sustainability plans). As part of planning or as standalone projects, we coordinate community participation, which fits our commitment to, and skill with, engaging diverse communities, and project management.
As with all of our work, as a subdivision of state government municipal procurement from CRM is exempt from MGL Chapter 30B Procurement (Section 1 (3) and 1 (4)).