The City of Kalamazoo has exciting news to announce: as of last month, Kalamazoo has officially kicked off its next ten year master plan: Imagine Kalamazoo 2035! What is a master plan? A city’s master plan is a broad outlook on the area’s future – it’s a set of goals, values, dreams, and plans to help that city create a better life for all its citizens. Imagine Kalamazoo 2035 is a plan for the next decade in Kalamazoo. It’s the process of “imagining a vision for Kalamazoo’s future – discussing it, planning it, designing it, and acting on it” (City of Kalamazoo, 2024).

Imagine Kalamazoo 2035, or IK2035, is all about engaging with the greater Kalamazoo community. There are tons of new and ongoing projects that help make this engagement possible! They include a city-wide book read, surveys, and meetings. All of these engagement efforts will help inform the creation of a new master plan, as well as the City’s Strategic Vision (the overarching guiding document for the City informed by the community’s priorities and vision for the future of Kalamazoo).

Kalamazoo College is an important voice in the IK2035 discussion. Students, faculty, and staff at K College engage with the City and greater Kalamazoo on so many levels – civic engagement programs, simple trips downtown, class trips off campus, and students living in nearby neighborhoods, just to name a few examples. Because our campus is so tightly woven into the Kalamazoo community, our voices and vision are essential for making IK2035 as great as it can be.

As IK2035 kicks off, now is the perfect time for K College folks to give input and shape the plan! There are so many ways to do this, and it can be hard to figure out where to go. With this in mind, we invite you to come to a special event. Next Thursday, October 24th from 4-5pm, join us in the Arcus Center to talk about Imagine Kalamazoo 2035! Come learn about IK 2035 as a whole, and how we as strategic partners can contribute. Your voice is important, and we hope to see you there!