141–150 of 346 posts
Spend time with your neighbors and local businesses. That goes a long way. Learn more about what works well in the city, and what doesn't. Consider serving in a volunteer capacity with various organizations like local neighborhood councils or schools. Most importantly, if you can devote time, money, or both to local schools, you will make the biggest impact there. Have kids? Send your kids to the local public school.…
The single best thing you can do is pick a neighborhood - not the whole city - and invest deeply. Get to know everyone in the neighborhood and understand what they want and need, then try to find ways to bring that. When you have a strong network of neighbors and a little bit of cash, you can ramp up investment by cleaning up dirty corners and getting the basic services that a neighborhood is missing. Here’s an examp…
for a year I lived in a city on a nice block that was near some not so nice blocks. One thing we had that the other blocks did not, was an old lady with a bunch of brooms that knocked on everyones door once a month and made us all sweep. It really made a difference.
There's a reason that the single word I know in the most languages is "Grandmother".
If yours doesn't have that, then... be the Bubbie your Bubbie would insist is needed or something to that effect
Cory Booker as a city councilman did this in miniature. His book describes it. At one point he made his office the parking lot outside a troubled projects building - lots of crime and trafficking were reported there and he wanted to help. So while his office was there (under tents) crime was greatly diminished from the area. It’s at least an example like you’re looking to do. If you had some money, I’d maybe look int…
Cory Booker as a city councilman did this in miniature. His book describes it. At one point he made his office the parking lot outside a troubled projects building - lots of crime and trafficking were reported there and he wanted to help. So while his office was there (under tents) crime was greatly diminished from the area. It’s at least an example like you’re looking to do. If you had some money, I’d maybe look int…
>So while his office was there (under tents) crime was greatly diminished from the area. It’s at least an example like you’re looking to do. Having a politician who has the police at his beck and call set up shop there seems like it just displaces the problem instead of solving it but I guess if you scope your goal to the neighborhood it does solve it.
Poor and dangerous cities usually suffer from a lack of institutional capital. Historically the answer would be: go to church. More likely you’re not religious, so go to a similar regular event that places you in touch with your neighbors in the city. Join a committee or a choir or a volunteer group or arts group or the like that serves the community. Do not join an organization dedicated solely to political advancem…
It's also worth noting that philanthropy has the biggest long-lasting positive impact when funds move into and through local centers of institutional capital.
Building the institutional capital is the hard part. No amount of money thrown at a problem will fix it in the long term without the local institutional capital, and a shared and transmittable wordview that keeps it alive across generations. Churches were indeed the historical local institution that endured across generations in the United States for many generations past, but those also fed into non-parochial committees that would tackle local projects.
I'm generalizing primarily from knowledge of the history of my own city. It's the most beautiful city for miles around. It had many churches in its early history (there's still a single block with 5 historic church buildings and a YWCA), and also had rich benefactors starting about 110 years ago who formed committees and built a lot of beautiful things here, including a beautiful Moorish architecture library, a series of beautiful parks, and a 2500-seat amphitheater which still hosts a free concert/show series every summer.
2) For each problem in the scope of your project, identify "better" and if possible quantify it. It's too easy to delude yourself that your efforts are "working" if you haven't decided explicitly in advance what that word means.
3) For each problem, identify a cause. For a city, this will probably be a feat of economics and/or public choice theory. Both are unfortunately riddled with ideology, and you have one of those, and it will be hard to keep them separate, but if you want to help you have to find a way.
4) Many of the problems are likely to share a common cause, a single point upon which to apply pressure to bring about large scale results. Analyze and study your way here, don't let your ideological sensibilities identify it for you. Get those as far out of your way as you are able. Hint: if you think you've found someone to harm or penalize as a solution (rich people, immigrants, drug addicts...) you probably slipped up in that effort.
5) Assess realistically whether there is anything you can do to address the cause.
1. Giving people a voice. People don't feel a sense of belonging because they a single individual amongst thousands/millions. Being able to discuss things directly on a map with other citizens is empowering.
2. Serving as a spatial knowledge base. Allows users to collaboratively catalog the best, worst, most interesting etc. parts and elements. For example all items tagged with cycling in Waterloo (https://plantogether.city/tag/cycling?area_id=3).
Having more organized information and discussions could go a long way in improving decision making.
I like how some comments are painting a rise in wealth in these areas as somehow bad, but are hiding it behind the term “gentrification” and doing cartwheels to make sure the areas stay in poverty but somehow better than before. I’ll leave the comment at that, it’s amusing enough.
Yes it’s unfortunate. Gentrification is a big win for homeowners, and a big loss for renters. Are there strategies that allow us to improve our neighborhoods without displacing renters?
Another thing that would help is a land value tax (as opposed to a property value tax) which would promote the use of expensive land for more housing.