Emory University to focus on renewing two communities
- 4/27/12
- Categorized in: DeKalb News
Since 1975, DeKalb County has used federal funding for various neighborhood projects such as constructing swimming pools, paving streets, home renovation and constructing senior housing, and community and recreation centers.
These are great uses of the funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to develop viable urban communities, said Chris Morris, DeKalb’s human and community development director.
But the county needs to do something differently, she told community leaders April 19.
“Why aren’t these neighborhoods revitalized?” Morris asked. “Why don’t we have stronger neighborhoods everywhere in DeKalb County?
“When you drive through our neighborhoods, do you see strong, sustainable neighborhoods consistently all over DeKalb County?” Morris asked. “I am hoping everyone realizes we need to do something a little differently in order to have a greater impact with our neighborhoods.”
Morris introduced the DeKalb Sustainable Neighborhoods Initiative (DSNI), a pilot program that will foster a collaborative, community-based approach to improving the quality of life in DeKalb neighborhoods.
Morris said the initiative, once approved by the Board of Commissioners, will be part of the five-year plan, the county submits to HUD.
The county’s department of human and community development and its partner, the Emory University Office of University-Community Partnerships, has identified seven candidate areas for the pilot program: Clarkston, Columbia, Cross Keys, Lithonia, McNair, Stone Mountain and Towers.
These areas, based on county school district clusters, were identified because of their eligibility to use resources available through the county’s HUD-funded programs, Morris said.
These communities will be narrowed down to two areas that will participate in the pilot program. The finalists will be selected based on their ability to leverage their community assets and collaborate with businesses, agencies and organizations that share an interest in the community to develop a comprehensive approach for improving their neighborhoods.
To vie for a spot in the pilot program, candidate communities must prepare a letter of intent.
Michael Rich, director of the Emory University Office of University-Community Partnerships, said the letter is not a formal proposal, but a narrative document that describes the community’s commitment, its leadership team, top three pressing neighborhood issues and a proposed “early action” project that demonstrates the community’s ability to work together.
The letters of intent are due May 10 and the finalists will be selected later that month.
Rich said the current way that many communities address community development is with a “multiplicity of programs that are focused on a single issue.”
“We see a problem, we convene a task force and we create a program,” Rich said. “You have all this particularized fragmentation that makes it very difficult to pull the resources together to holistically address a problem.
“The new paradigm… of collective impact is recognition that, if we are holistically going to address our communities and make them stronger, we need to work together, we need to have a common vision, we need to draw on the strengths of the neighborhoods,” Rich said.
“This is not a study,” Morris said. “We want to develop plans that we can actually work with. We want to be able to leverage all the funds that we can to make a difference.
“We can always do projects and initiatives,” Morris said. “We’re trying to have a greater impact.”
The cross keys district ( the mess was created by the dekalb county school system) "businesses, organizations, government, and agencies are those that have filled in flood plains, destroyed bird and wildlife sanctuaries, piped all the streams, disconnected the towns by bad construction, Buford highway slums caused by the very people involved using this scam to line their pockets. The people that are not involved and have been shut off are the environmental groups, the constructors of the recycling programs, the volunteer groups that actually work to improve the community, the taxpayer backbone of the system.
Morris and Rich are typical left wing government fat cats feeding off of people that do the real work. The uneducated poor are being hustled once again by the slum lords and the self involved elitist- this time Emory's poor little self important rich kids.
The UN defines Sustainable Development in their documentation online at http://www.iisd.org/sd/. Here you will find the term means that the rich (meaning the USA) should degrade their standard of living and come under the leadership of the UN so that the poor can have our wealth handed to them on a golden platter.
UN documentation states that in order to fool the public "we call our processes something else, such as comprehensive planning, growth management or smart growth"
Search Agenda 21 on the internet!
Read more here: http://www.newswithviews.com/Morrison/joyce36.htm
When I think about what sustainability means to me, I think of being self-sufficient in a pretty big way: local food production, local shops that sell locally manufactured/produced goods, and most importantly - local economic sustainability, which includes making sure there are adequate jobs for community residents to be able to pay for housing, food, and have enough left over to feed back into local businesses (demand), which keeps the entire circle going.
But when I read articles like this (no offense to the author(s)), I am admit not having a clue what is being talked about. Is this "twin cities" program just dealing with environmental sustainability (a noble cause unto itself)? Where specifically are the efforts going to be applied?