Dream City: Vision 2020

Dream City Vision 2020 is a grassroots, community-owned collaborative project that engages throughout the Pikes Peak region of Colorado in meaningful dialogue to create a brighter future for the region. The project seeks to promote civic engagement, and to identify common visions and values that will move the community forward in the coming decade. The arts have played a critical role in inspiring and engaging the community in this visioning effort.

The Dream City Vision 2020 project began in 2008 with the creation of a website that gives Pikes Peak residents opportunities to offer their input into the community vision. Its arts-based components were galvanized in 2009 in a multidisciplinary art contest in which individuals were invited to draw, paint, sculpt, photograph, videotape, or write about what they want their community to look like in 2020. Winning the year entries were displayed in the Fine Arts Center Modern Gallery and other community venues.

In conjunction with the project, the Cultural Office of the Pikes Peak Region (COPPeR) held an Arts Summit in fall 2009 that drew nearly 200 members of the Pikes Peak arts community. The organization used this and other focus group efforts to engage the community in discussion about the roles that arts and culture should play in creating the vibrant community of the future, and to begin designing a cultural plan for the region.