Grand Rapids launches "Quality of Life" game to gather ideas for Michigan St. corridor improvement

First it was the Green Grand Rapids initiative's Green Pursuits game in 2008 that provided citizen feedback on improving the city's green spaces. Now, following that same successful and fun avenue for collecting data, Grand Rapids city planners have launched Quality of Life, a board game to gather ideas on how the users and residents of Michigan Street would like to see the corridor improved.

The city's planning department devised the game hoping that Michigan Street businesses, drivers, employees, residents and other stakeholders will gather with friends to think about, talk about, and mark on the game's board anything that would help improve the corridor from the E. Beltline to the Grand River.

"It starts with an ice breaker about why you use the Michigan Street corridor, what you like and don't like, and you share that with the other players," says Planning Director Suzanne Schulz. "You structure conversation around what things are on Michigan Street, you write down the answers and get them back to us."

The game includes a corridor map game board, instructions, game pieces, colored markers and sticky dots. Players will travel the corridor on the game board, thinking and talking about infrastructure, traffic, housing and other aspects of the street. They'll place the sticky dots on the map to indicate what improvements -- green spaces, trees, businesses and services, traffic controls, etc. -- they'd like to see and where.

"The game gives everyone a framework to have a good discussion about what the future holds," Schulz says. "At the same time, it gives the city some really good information to understand what our goals should be for the corridor. This is a regional corridor and we want to make sure it operates that way, plus represents all the users in the area."

The corridor improvement steering committee began a planning process last fall to determine what improvements are needed to serve businesses, the Medical Mile and others who use the corridor.

The game is free and is available now from the planning department at 1120 Monroe NW. Players should return the completed game to the planning department by March 2.

Source: Suzanne Schulz, Grand Rapids Planning Department
Writer: Deborah Johnson Wood, Development News Editor