Who's the Expert?

Recently, I attended a planning meeting for a potential new community development project in the Larimer neighborhood that focused on education. I showed up to the community center dressed in a nice shirt and jeans and found out quickly that I was extremely underdressed. I also found out very quickly that I was under-qualified. As we introduced ourselves, it was made clear that the "who's who" in education was there and the only reason that I even got word of it was because my field supervisor got an actual invite. As people said their names and who they were, I was impressed, no doubt, but I also started to notice that there were a fair number of people who had a title in education but were not within Pittsburgh Public, which would be the district most effected by this plan, and some organizations represented weren't even within the city limits. One of the women who was there, who happened to also be a formal principal, kept asking where the members of the community were. The answer was, 'community members were invited to come to a special meeting later that day and that all of the other meetings were "open" to the public'. Although, the whole thing felt like an exclusive secret club, one that I, as an educated person who was somewhat invited, felt as if I'd snuck in.

The meeting went on for a good while and at different times people would always bring up the community, its members, and the complexity of planning without the affected party (heck, it's complex even with the affected party present). The group that was trying to propose this project kept telling us that they included community people "every step of the way," when all I heard mentioned to corroborate that was the fact that they got to talk about mailboxes and housing logistics (legitimate but that's only one part). I had such conflicting feelings about the whole thing. On one hand, it felt like we were setting the community up for failure. On the other, it felt like the community had set itself up for failure. I thought automatically to Richard Florida's article in which he says, " Instead of handing over neighborhoods or even whole sections of cities to city hall or private developers, we’d be much better off enabling residents to take control of and build on community assets, engaging them in community-based organizations that can spearhead revitalization and build real quality of place." He makes a lot of good points but isn't the most clear about the best ways to turn this idea into practice.

So, in response, I have these questions:

1) How does that happen? How do we develop in a way that is align with Florida's sentiments? And is that the best way?

2) And who is running these organizations?

3) Who is the person (or people) that is actually going to establish (and maintain) McKnight's abundant community?

4) How do we organically provide the resources needed to revitalize a community without ignoring the community in the process? 

5) But then again, how do we get a community to even get invited to the discussion table, or better yet, start the discussion?

Here is a video that documents a community-based revitalization process happening in Portland:

What do you think? Is this going to work? Is this enough? Will it go anywhere? Is it sustainable? What does a community need in order to truly be able to "revitalize" itself? If Florida were watching this video would he support this movement or reject it? 

When it All Comes Together...

I've spoken about gun violence and I've spoken about education but I haven't spoken about how the two are intertwined, nor have I talked about how those two are parts of  much bigger and complex problems. So, I'm going to tell you about my friend, M. I met M two summers ago while working at the Pittsburgh Project. We would chat daily and the more we chatted the more he told me about his life. 

This is what he told me:

 He revealed early on that his "parents" were actually his grandparents that had adopted him (they did that with a lot of their sons' children). I knew his biological mom was in and out of the picture but he never once mentioned his dad. He told me that at least one of his brothers was murdered and at least 2 of his brothers were serving life sentences. He showed me the scar from the time he got shot. He told me that he got suspended from high school and then later dropped out, after other alternative school attempts, because he threw a rock through a window. He told me that he was taking GED classes that summer (he was 19 at the time). 

What he didn't tell me but what I saw was that after his friend was murdered 2 streets over, which happened to be a couple of weeks before his GED program was done, he quit. That was it. And I was heartbroken.

But the thing is around here, where there is much sadness there is also much joy. And here, there is an astounding amount of resilience in a place that should suck the life out of someone. The reality is that my community is both of these realities. 

That was two summers ago. Where’s M now, you might ask? He is currently in a job-corp program where he works on hands-on skills and gets his GED simultaneously. He’s going to get his GED, I repeat; he is going to get his GED and plans to join the army afterwards. This story isn’t for you to feel bad for M. It’s for you to see that sometimes (most times) education is effected by your environment and actually I’d argue vice versa as well, and that you can’t "cure" one thing without the other. There's a lot more to community development and reform than writing on a document or a quick fix. M is not the only person with this story. There are lots of M's. So, what?

There is a poem called Youth Voices by Yusef Campbell that I really feel encompasses my sentiments. It reads as follows:

What are the youth to accomplish when they don’t have a voice?

And what do they acquire when they don’t have a choice?

Who asks the children, the youth what they need?

Who gives them the chance, to say what they mean?

Who takes the time out to answer their questions?

Who looks deep inside their anger and aggression?

Who gives them their love, support, and their trust?

Who gives them the courage, to keep going when stuck?

Who gives them the voice when the voice is too weak to be heard?

Who picks up the voice and not kick it to the curb?

What, you don’t see violence and you don’t see rage?

That’s all the voices yelling, cuz they’ve yet to see change

And when the yellin gets loud, y’all cover your ears

Instead of hearing the words in the eyes behind the tears

They beggin for quality, not quantity hear

But instead of getting books, they get cases and years.

How do we give our youth the voice they deserve? How do we create this abundant community/recognize the abundance in our communities when this is the reality of what’s going on? We know that it’s not a quick fix, yes. But who is going to stick around to see vision become reality? Is an abundant community reality? Can it exist? How do we tackle one problem, knowing that there are 10 problems that go hand-in-hand with the original problem? Who cares?