The following commentary by Paul Bray, published Sunday, February
10, 2002 in the Times Union, discusses the Neighbors building
Neighborhoods program in Rocheser.
http://www.capital.net/~force/neighhp.html
The vision to move beyond NIMBYism
Times Union First published: Sunday, February 10, 2002
My experience with neighborhood organizations has found them mostly
on the defensive. Neighbors often rally when faced with changes they
perceive will harm their well being, such as the loss of parkland, a new
or expanded highway or out-of-scale development. Their success is
reflected in the growth of the anti-development phenomenon NIMBY -"not in my back yard.''
While NIMBYism can be perceived as blocking "progress,'' organized
neighborhood action many times has stopped environmentally bad
development, such as the coal-fired generating plant proposed for
Halfmoon in the 1980s, or led to beneficial redesign that makes for
better change.
But can neighborhood organizations work as a proactive force in making
for better communities? Do residents have the interest, time and
resources to make ongoing commitments to their neighborhoods and
communities? Don't we have professional planners and outside
consultants to do this work, and mayors and town supervisors to make
decisions?
Jennifer Plunkett and Doug Rice of Rochester recently offered
participants in Albany's annual neighborhood conference a good
example of what empowered individuals and neighborhood
organizations can contribute to their city. I was on the planning
committee for the December conference.
Plunkett, who has lived her whole life in the same zip code area, is a
young mother and business owner on a Rochester street a bit like
Albany's Central Avenue. She became a neighborhood activist after she
heard Rochester Mayor William Johnson say that he could not improve
the city's quality of life without the active participation of its residents.
Johnson advanced a robust planning process for resident empowerment
called "Neighbors Building Neighborhoods.'' Campaign One in
Rochester's vision for the 21st century is "Involve Citizens.''
Plunkett said that NBN worked for her because it was built on a
"supportive city government,'' "open communication'' and "mutual
respect'' between governmental officials and citizens. NBN offers
manuals to instruct citizens on the ongoing process of organizing their
neighborhoods, identifying available resources and tools, and
developing neighborhood visions, goals and action plans.
Rice, a sound technician, tested NBN when he and others objected to
what was initially viewed as a routine road resurfacing and widening
project to "move traffic'' on Rochester's University Avenue. They
thought the road should reflect the character of the neighborhood,
including the priority on pedestrian use.
They used the tools and relationships developed through NBN to get the
design scaled down and made more pedestrian friendly. But they also
advanced the idea and got federal, state and local funding for "Artwalk,''
an elaborate $300,000 interactive project of public art along University
Avenue's sidewalks. Here neighbors acted defensively to have the road
project redesigned, but at the same time proactively brought about a
significant improvement to the public realm.
Mayor Johnson and his administration are justifiably proud of NBN and
have sought to foster its application in other cities. They succeeded, for
example, when Syracuse adopted the process for its "Tomorrow's
Neighborhoods Today.'' You can learn about it at
http://www.rochesternbn.com.
Empowered citizens like Jennifer Plunkett and Doug Rice are Mayor
Johnson's best allies for making a better city. They are a barometer of
neighborhood conditions and a catalyst for constructive improvements
like Artwalk.
Paul M. Bray is founding president of the Albany Roundtable civic
lunch forum. His e-mail address is secsunday@aol.com.
http://councilalbanyna.tripod.com/concluding_remarks.htm
Neighborhood Works II
Concluding remarks by Paul M. Bray
In the interests of time of which there isn't much of at the end of an
informative and thought provoking conference, I would like to conclude
by highlighting four points:
1. Continue building civic capital. Last year Todd Swanstrom ended
the conference by talking about Albany's patron psychology and
sociologist Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone, who teach us
about the critical importance for cities and nations to be civically strong
and active. I want to reiterate this message that is especially important in
a highly politicized city like Albany where we have all politics all the
time. Weall need to support civic initiatives and organizations like
CANA, Albany Roundtable, Historic Albany Foundations, Washington
Park Conservancy and each and every neighborhood association and
social and charitable organization in Albany. And we need great
projects that come from the grass roots like ArtWalk that Doug Rice
from Rochester told us about. www.Rochesterartwalk.org. Mayor
Jennings, what happened to the Albany Educationway and Education
Compact?
2. Cities like Albany can best prosper with many small initiatives like
the own a home projects in Schenectady and Troy to increase resident
home ownership and to upgrade all areas of the City. Transformational
or big developer projects may come along but they are not the answer to
a successful and livable city.
The following is a letter to the NY Times by Mayor Thomas M. Menino
of Boston, July 12, 1999
Better to Fix Up Cities Than Tear Them Down
To the Editor:
Re: "Slash-and-Burn Urban Renewal" (op-ed, July 9)
At a time when some cities are stepping up efforts to tear down
abandoned houses, my city is working harder to fix them up.
(skip two paragraphs)
Seizing a vacant, tax-delinquent property through the courts takes time.
It takes even more time to get that house sold, renovated, occupied and
back on the tax rolls. But fixing up these houses one by one is a better
strategy in the long run than tearing them down.
Every renovated home stabilizes a neighborhood, preserves its
traditional character and feeds the real estate market. Empty, weed-filled
wasteland is not better for a city. The need for housing is to great for us
not to try.
3. We need to have an environment that is accepting of constructive
criticism and civic discourse. In Albany there is a tendency to treat all
criticism as if it was tainted by coming from persons with an axe to grind
or to use Mayor Jenning's words "a disgruntled minority". We will
never progress without constructive criticism that can help us improve.
4. Albany is not a suburb. Cities with urban qualities like walkability
and diversity make poor suburbs. We need to recognize, appreciate and
celebrate the real strong urban values including the neighborhoods and
institutions we have in Albany and preserve our heritage and urban
fabric.
I want to conclude by reading something I found published in another
city (Buffalo) and wish it could happen in Albany in 2002. Obviously, I
have changed the name of the city and Mayor.
Citizen-city dialogue drew nearly 3,600
Mayor, Council hosted public conversation on City's future
More than 3,500 citizens of Albany came out in October and November,
2002, to join their neighbors in an extended conversation about the
future of our city-about what that future ought to be and the best way to
get us there.
They attended "Neighborhood Summits" in each of the Council Districts
of the City of Albany, co-hosted by Mayor Jennings and the Council
member from each of those districts. Since then, the City government
has been working to provide tangible responses to what citizens had to
say.
The Neighborhood Summits provided a clear ranking of citizen priorities
for action. They also produced a highly detailed discussion about a wide
range of specific issues. Citizen priorities are shaping the agenda of the
Albany city administration.
As demanded through the Summits, the Jenning's administration created
the Mayor's Neighborhood Matching Fund to help neighborhood
associations improve their own neighborhoods.
There was a lot of discussion about the basic challenges the city faces-in
fighting crime, preserving housing and neighborhoods, improving
education and creating jobs.
Sometimes the discussions were heated, even confrontational. But more
often, City Officials and citizens met face to face to talk about the issues,
explain their points of view, and hear the other out. It is safe to say that
everyone learned a lot, and that the connection between citizens and the
City is stronger for it.
As a result, we now have a better and more detailed picture about the
problems we, as Albanians, face and what we all think should be done
to solve them. And this picture is based on a larger and broader crosssection of citizens than ever before.
This does mean that the Summits were the last word on citizen
priorities. The civic discussion about what to do will never be over. But
the results of the Neighborhood Summits-carefully recorded and
analyzed by the Urban Design Studio of the Ualbany Department of
Geography and Planning-will serve as the basis for continuing work on
problems and on planning for the future.
Creation of a new master plan for the City of Albany is using the
Summit results as a starting point, and then inviting citizens to get
involved again as we develop a specific vision for the future of the City
of Albany together.