A city development project started by a Binghamton University professor has been ranked second of nine finalists in the Phillips Livable Cities Award, an international competition of community projects.

Professor David Sloan Wilson of BU’s evolutionary biology department has for several years been the director of the Binghamton Neighborhood Project (BNP), a collaboration between BU faculty and community partners that seeks to improve the quality of life in the Southern Tier.

The BNP has done research and taken on several projects to help fulfill this mission statement, but it’s the Design Your Own Park competition that is garnering an international reputation for innovation.

The BNP, the city of Binghamton and United Way, as well as the various communities participating, are all working together to make the Design Your Own Park Competition work. Community groups, such as the First Ward Neighborhood Assembly of Binghamton, have helped brainstorm ideas for parks in their communities.

According to Wilson, these parks should appeal to all types of age groups to maximize the community value in helping all the people come together. The city of Binghamton has provided the vacant lots for use in the project and with the United Way Organization have helped to procure funds for implementing the parks.

According to Tarik Abdelazim, the director of Planning, Housing and Community Development for the city of Binghamton, “DYOP is proving a huge success because of the enthusiasm, leadership and support from David Sloan Wilson and his team.”

Wilson said he hopes the initiative will “provide the ingredients to help communities function better.”

According to Wilson, winning the Phillips Livable Cities Award could give DYOP a major boost.

The Phillips Livable Cities award is an international competition that had about 450 entries this year. The DYOP initiative has made it to the short list of nine contestants for the award, and it has the chance to win up to 75,000 euros or about $100,000.

DYOP is currently ranked second in the public voting for the international award, but the public voting is only one part of the decision process for the winners of the award. There is also a judging panel, which includes a former mayor of London. The second and third prizes are each worth 25,000 euros.

Even if the DYOP initiative does not finish in the money for the Phillips Award, it is already helping out members of the community in Binghamton. Mary Lou Rutkowski, chair of the First Ward Neighborhood Assembly, said for some time the group was trying to get its “Sunflower Park” project developed for its community.

“Our challenges came in the years previous to the DYOP project,” Rutkowski said. “Under this project we are making more strides forward than we expected.”

One thing that Wilson emphasized about his project was that it is something that is grounded in scientific thinking. His idea came from “studying how groups function well as a scientist.” It was his studies on individuals coming together and “community building” that led to DYOP. Parks, in his opinion, are a great way to bring communities together and getting them to function well.

Students can play a part in this project as well, if they are interested. It was Robert Kadar, a graduate student working with the BNP, that submitted DYOP as an entry for the Phillips Livable Cities Award. There are many undergraduate students who work for the BNP, and students can find information about the organization from its website at bnp.binghamton.edu. Also, of course, students can vote any time for the DYOP initiative at the Phillips Livable Cities Award to help support an important community project for Binghamton.