New Urbanism - The Cotton District

 Although Starkville, Mississippi is prominently known for Mississippi State University, the Cotton District is a notable historic neighborhood to the area. With a location between Mississippi State University and downtown Starkville The Cotton District is in a prime location. This area became an important location in 1927 when the Sanders family built a cotton mill known as The Mill today. With constructing the cotton mill, tenant housing needed to be provided for workers that were small one room wide and several deep small homes. With housing being constructed for tenants, churches, schools and shops were also developed into the community. Unfortunately, the cotton mill stopped production in 1964 which eventually left the tenant housing decrypted and vacant. 

Precedingly in 1967, Urban Renewal Laws were adopted by the city of Starkville a new life would be brought to this once thriving area. Although urban renewal lines were drawn for the area, some of the properties were left out of the redevelopment plan. Eventually, Dan Camp became interested in acquiring housing for students in 1969. Camp used inspiration from southern historical architecture to develop small eight unit townhouses to be located on Lummus Drive. Many people in the community thought the location was not a good idea, however eventually these units created a domino effect to the area and allowed Camp to continuously build and redevelop homes in the Cotton District. 

Today, the Cotton District is a prime location for student housing and leisurely activity. In fact, it is quite hard to find an apartment in the area being that the units seem to always be full. It's quite interesting the architecture in the area being that we are in the south it is hard to find an area with the simple plantation style architecture that was prevalent in the area. However, being that most units in the area are rentals, the lack of maintenance on buildings seems to take away from the aesthetically appealing architecture.