Bringing Racine Back to its Root
Racine, like many industrial cities used their river for transportation and commerce in the past. Many people consider how we have treated our urban rivers as turning our backs to them which has kept them from public view and limited people's ability to interact with rivers. Urban rivers are often hidden behind warehouses and the only interaction most people have with the river is driving over it.
Our changing economic times are providing an opportunity to redevelop the river in a way that values the river as an amenity. Racine is redeveloping in many ways and careful consideration has been made to how areas like downtown and the lakefront are redeveloped. Our goal is to involve the community to put the same effort into how the Root River is revitalized in the next few years.
The current and future developments along and near the Root River will be a positive addition to downtown and the economy. Our hope is to create an Urban Root River Plan that includes recommendations to balance this redevelopment with improving the quality of and public access to the river.
Back to the Root: An Urban River Revitalization Plan is a vision for the Root River that was created by the Root River Council based on more than a year’s worth of public input. The plan lays out recommendations to bring a positive focus back to the Root River within the City of Racine. A PDF (1.5mb) of the entire plan can be viewed here. The plan has four main goals: