The City of St. Louis has a serious vacancy challenge. Since 1950, when its population reached its historic high of 850,000 people, the City has experienced a 63% decline, resulting in one of the highest rates of vacancy in the nation.

Vacancy to Vibrancy was developed to help neighbors improve vacant lots in their communities step-by-step. The Guide contains example projects, sample site plans, budget suggestions, worksheets, lists of tools, local resources—everything needed to hit the ground running with a successful revitalization project.
The resources in this Guide were compiled or created by more than a dozen contributors as a joint project of the Vacancy Collaborative, Green City Coalition, and Arbolope Studio. Not only was Arbolope involved in the curation and creation of a number of aspects of this Guide, they also designed the Guide itself, creating custom illustrations, designing the layout, providing creative direction and photography services, as well as providing quality control and printing administration. Beyond the layout design and illustrations, the Landscape Architect was also responsible for creating all sample planting designs, and Appendix D: Missouri Native Plants.

A comprehensive resource available for download as well as in print, it is a free resource for anyone to use. More importantly, it places the initiative and the power to enact real tangible change back in the hands of individuals and communities. Far from advocating against or acting as a replacement for thoughtful landscape design, this guide is part activism and part resource – conveying key site design, construction, and programming ideas in simple and concrete terms as a way to provide disinvested communities of people with access to useful and approachable methods for stabilizing and improving their own neighborhoods without succumbing to external gentrifying forces, or waiting for slower-moving civic improvement projects to garner enough funding or support.

More project Information coming soon.