About CU/Micro-urban
We Are FAA
Krannert Center unites with Dance at Illinois, the Department of Landscape Architecture, the Department of Theatre, the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Japan House, Krannert Art Museum, the School of Architecture, the School of Art and Design, and the School of Music to form the College of Fine and Applied Arts. Not content to merely revisit the past, the students, staff, faculty, and distinguished guest collaborators of FAA are explorers. We dig into that past, sift through its meanings, and uncover new truths. We survey our planet and record not just its problems but its tangible solutions. We embrace all perspectives, drink in images from around the globe, and soak up voices in every language. We forge deep collaborations. We envision a future of sustainability, health, inclusivity, equity, and beauty. We send messages of hope down through time to future generations. We are art makers. We are knowledge builders and explorers of our unrealized human potential. We see a world of promise.
We Are Micro-Urban
Home to one of the world’s great public research universities—and on a highly accelerated development track—Champaign-Urbana has emerged as a leading exemplar of micro-urbanism. Although the term “micro-urban” does not yet appear in the formal lexicon of urban planning or economic development in the following manner of speaking, it applies to population centers of 250,000 or less that possess a highly uncommon set of desirable attributes normally exclusively associated with much larger metropolitan centers. Among these are a vibrant arts/culture/nightlife scene, an internationally diverse population, a strong technology base, and a palpably animated public discourse on major societal and global concerns, such as sustainability and the environment.
The presence of such attributes within the context of a smaller population center—the size of which can provide advantages such as ease of transportation, more affordable living, and a stronger sense of community—positions the micro-urban lifestyle as an interesting alternative to what might be viewed as a heavier, more logistics-laden lifestyle associated with densely populated urban centers that can often diminish, rather than enhance, quality of life.
Deeply rooted in the heart of the American prairie, micro-urban Champaign-Urbana is home to Nobel Prize winners, Olympians, critically acclaimed international film and music festivals, world-renowned entrepreneurs, elite chefs, the nation’s newest major marathon, the newest and most powerful supercomputer in the world, radical transformers of the Internet, one of the nation’s elite public high schools, leading environmental scientists, the world’s premier university-based performing arts complex, numerous inventions that have changed lives for the better around the globe, a long line of distinguished artists, designers, architects, and landscape architects, and much more.