Citizens' Institute on Rural Design

The [Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design](https://www.rural-design.org/ "(opens in a new window)") (CIRD) is a leadership initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the Housing Assistance Council. Focusing on communities with populations of 50,000 or less, CIRD’s goal is to enhance the quality of life and economic viability of rural America through planning, design, and creative placemaking. CIRD is intended to empower local citizens to capitalize on unique local and regional assets in order to guide the civic development and future design of their own communities. The CIRD program goals include: - Building design capacity in rural communities to plan comprehensive revitalization strategies; - Introducing creative placemaking, arts, culture, and design strategies as drivers of economic development in rural America; - Facilitating a network of rural communities for design idea exchanges and peer learning; and - Preparing communities to be ready and competitive for arts- and design-related state and federal funding opportunities. ****History**** Established in 1991 by the National Endowment for the Arts as *Your Town: the Citizens' Institute on Rural Design*™, CIRD has supported more than 100 communities in all regions of the country, empowering residents to leverage local assets for the future in order to build better places to live, work, and play. CIRD was founded as a partnership between the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the State University of New York (SUNY) at Syracuse. From 2012 to 2018, CIRD was managed in partnership with Project for Public Spaces, Inc., along with the Orton Family Foundation. Since 2019 the program has been hosted in partnership with the Housing Assistance Council.