Smart Communities

I Still Have a Dream

No matter your political persuasion, yesterday's nomination of Barack Obama on the 45th anniversary of the "I Have a Dream" speech by Dr. King was historic. While I don't think the nomination means that we have gotten to the mountain as a country but it is a giant step. But whether our next president is named Barack or John, we had better invest in making some of our dreams for our country come true. 

There will be lots of promise in this seven-day period of convention rhetoric but we better demand some meat. This is a country that can do anything it sets its mind to do. If we need to ration water or oil or food, we can do it. If we need to sandbag the overflowing banks of the Mississippi River, we can do it. If we need to help disaster victims, we can do it. OK let's do it. Let's rebuild New Orleans better than before, let's insure more Americans, and let's give poor kids the chance they need. Those are my dreams. What are yours?

Enjoy your weekend. 

Even Loans Aren't Fair

The National Community Reinvestment Coalition released a report last month ranking communities on how they lend--essentially fair or not fair. The report found that a number of communities still discriminate in lending by making higher cost loans to minorities despite their income. Middle to upper income African Americans are twice as likely as middle to upper income whites to receive high-cost loans in 71.4 percent of the metro areas examined in the study. It is not a good thing to be on that top 20 list. The five metro areas where where blacks are most likely to get a high-cost loan are: Greenville, NC, Durham, NC, Raleigh-Cary, NC, Madison, WI, and Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis, WI. I would say North Carolina has some work to do. They have a great person in Martin Eakes fighting for fair housing there you can count on change.

As we address the housing crisis in earnest we must take a look at these unfair practices and continue to push forth in leveling the playing field so that all Americans have access to the capital they need to buy a home or start a business. Further this list raises the question for me--what else? What are the 21st century forms of discrimination? 

Poverty Remains Unchanged

The U.S. Census released its 2007 report yesterday. Probably the best news item is that we have fewer uninsured than last year. The bad news is that the poverty rate is the same--12.5 percent of all Americans live in poverty. More than a third of all people who live in poverty are children (35.7 percent to be exact). If you happen to be a child who lives in a single head of household headed by a female then about half of you are in poverty. What are we doing as a nation? We know that growing up in poverty has implications for a lifetime. No matter how strongly we feel about the opportunities for "pulling yourself up by the bootstraps" and "grabbing the American Dream." The fact of the matter is that it is really tough if you don't have any boots or any dreams to begin the journey. I know that this is a hard nut to crack but we have to do it. The Annie E. Casey Foundation as well as my friends at the Northwest Area Foundation are two national philanthropies that have taken on this issue. Every religious organization, community foundation, or civic group should too. This is the issue of our generation.

Birmingham Wants in the Game

I was just in Birmingham, AL, my hometown for my mother's 90th birthday. During my visit I heard people talk about the Olympic bid. I could not imagine what they meant. Well here it is. Mayor Larry Langford wants Birmingham to bid for the Olympics. While the 2016 games appear to be going to Chicago that has not daunted the mayor. Generally the belief is skepticism at best and laughter at worst. Here is a city that can even fix its roads for current traffic thinking about building roads, stadiums, and arenas for thousands more. While it is the longest of long shots, I happen to like Langford's big thinking idea. Birmingham has a lot to offer already. But it would take a lot to get to the finish line he has in mind. However there are intermediate goals that I think he should consider--other conventions or sports events that would be more than one meeting or game and help put Birmingham on the kind of map the mayor has in mind. But like Austin, TX, Atlanta, GA, and other cities that have transformed their images, he has got to tackle the basics with one eye and the future with the other. For starters, he needs to work on crime, education, and downtown Birmingham. Once those are well underway, then he will be in the position to invite guests in for a look. Mayors like Langford are better than those who whine and say things can't get better for sure. But hope without action on the ground doesn't work either. Where I think Langford is right is that this kind of project can bring a community together. We have seen that time and time again with festivals, conventions, and the like in other communities.

Tackle the schools and crime Mr. Langford and go visit a thriving downtown in Denver or Charleston, SC, and apply those standards to Birmingham. You will see how quickly your national stock will rise once you do these three things. The devil is in the details here not the big idea. Oh and also read this dose of reality about the economic impact of the Olympics.

Value of the Conventions

Today we begin the political season in earnest with the beginning of convention season. The Dems go first and then the Repubs follow suit. There will be no real surprises I suspect at either convention. We will know soon who the Republican running mate will be and that will take care of that suspense. Sure there are rules and platforms to hammer out but most of that has already been done. Then there is the question of whether Senator Clinton's name will be put in nomination. Whether that happens or not will not change the outcome of the convention.

What I am saying here is the conventions are long on "show" and short on substance. For the $40 million plus price tag, I would hope that there would be something new revealed. I seriously doubt it. Last night at dinner some friends of mine suggested that the conventions were a waste of money and probably wouldn't change many votes anyway. I suggested that a better use of the money would be a donation to the Denver or Minneapolis-St. Paul Public Schools. That would likely change more lives than the convention programming. Will I be tuned in tonight? You bet but not because I need to know more about the candidates or even about the platform. I am more interested in the dynamics among the central players. the rapport between the former rivals, and who has the best zingers. I will be doing the same for the Republican convention. But in four years, let's think about using technology in a smarter way to streamline the process, shortening the time spent, and save some money. A new approach to conventions could really move a conversation or an idea forward by contributing the money to something worthy. Not everyone agrees with this assessment--read on.

WayPoint is Way Ahead

My friend Connie Bellows who runs the Delta Strategy in Grand Rapids sent along a link to the WayPoint School in Muskegum, MI. WayPoint is a Charter School that is getting very good results. Scores are going up, student satisfaction is going up, and hopelessness is going down. While I love school stories that talk about the role that teachers, administrators, parents, and students play in success--and this one certainly has all those attributes--but it also has one more--creativity. This is a school as I read it that is thinking about what students need, what will interest them, and most important, how to engage them in learning. You can have all the support in the world and leave out creativity and you are just another school that beat the odds. For example, one of the pressing issues in our country is financial exigency. People are losing their homes left and right because of many factors but one for sure they took on more debt than they could manage. So how does WayPoint answer this kind of societal challenge? It has a credit union on campus and has as one of its goals financial literacy.

Of course we need to know more but this is a great example of what can happen in schools. We cannot give up or think it will come without more investment. This is the time for our public schools to take a new look and a new approach. Communities get ready to help!

'No Excuses' Education

I don't agree with George Will on a number of things but his op-ed today on a charter school in Oakland piqued my curiosity and forced me to look long and hard a few things. Will profiles the American Indian Public Charter School and one student's quest to be admitted. The school is run like a very tight ship--uniforms, specified codes of conduct, high expectations. While culture is respected, it sounds like outcomes trump self-expression. Ben Chavis, administrator emeritus, says "Everyone says we should preserve our culture. There is a lot of our culture we should wipe out."  It is heavy-duty on the learning side with every student taking four pre-Advanced Placement classes with a 196-day school year. Will is basing his article on a book by David Whitman, Sweating the Small Stuff: Inner City Schools and the New Paternalism.

I am not sure that I am ready to wave the white flag and say that open learning environments have gone the way of the Edsel but I do concede that a more controlled learning environment seems to work--at least as it is described here. Backing up all these rules are teachers who sound motivated and committed. Chavez kept only one person from the old regime when he took over as administrator. Chavez goal is to combat the culture of poverty and lack of achievement by letting the school be the primary culture. While this is a little "in your face" to parental and community involvement, it seems to be working. But it is a charter school--fewer students, restricted admittance. How can we think about this kind of structure in our public schools that are failing? We have a new principal in our high school here and his motto for the beginning of school I am told is "this is a place for learners--teachers and students alike. I want all learners to learn and be safe." Sounds like a good place to start. If you are wondering what makes a school good--public, private, or charter--read this list. It is not brain surgery folks. We just have to do it.

Indiana Celebrates

I was in Franklin, Indiana yesterday conducting a Smart Communities seminar at the invitation of the Indiana Leadership Association. It was a great group with interesting ideas and perspectives to share. As always, I spend a fair amount of time on cataloguing assets. There were certainly plenty of them. But one category that stuck out was the festivals and celebrations. I don;t know if Indiana leads the nation on this but they would have to come close. Two that were discussed in some depth were the Model T Convention in Richmond. It was the 100th anniversary of the car and thousands of owners brought theirs to town. This kind of hosting is a great boon to the civic life of the community and shows people what they can do together. The organizers as I understand it were local owners who got the idea to host the celebration and then began to involve others. This could be a major turning point for Richmond as those inside the community see what can be done and what a great time people had in their community. Festivals and celebrations like this give communities a chance to shine. They put their best foot forward and it usually pays off in tourism dollars and in civic pride. 

Greenville Will Give Chattanooga Pointers

As I wrote last week, Chattanooga's landing of the VW plant has caused them to asked the "now what?" question. A delegation was in or is going to Greenville, SC, to find out how they handled the BMW presence. Well as a person who thinks about these things, I would say pretty well. Greenville fits the bill of my metropolitown definition to the letter. It is a mid-sized town with the amenities of a much larger city. It has a strong arts presence, a very vibrant and impressive downtown, a convention center, and a growing hotel base. But with all of this, it still has a hometown flavor and feel. Amidst this however, they are worried about their high school drop rate, have seen a spike in crime in the downtown area I am told, and some job loss. So what are they doing about these things? They have an Alliance for Education that is diligently working on the education issue, they put 23 more police officers in the downtown area when crime surfaced and now a curfew, and they are actively recruiting more businesses to the area to replace jobs lost. In other words, it is a city on the move in all the right ways. What I liked so much about the community was this feel of pride by every person you met. So Chattanooga you have big shoes to fill. What BMW built in Greenville was a high tech plant and a road to a new future for a community that was poised for change. 

Greenville and the Beamer

Today I am Greenville, SC ,home of the BMW manufacturing facility. Greenville is a sophisticated mid-size city--metropolitown--that boasts an excellent art museum, convention hall, and expanding restaurant scene. While Greenville has always had some nice amenities, the location of the BMW facility 15 miles from downtown has encouraged their expansion. The same will be true of Chattanooga as they think about the impact--positive and negative--of the new VW plant on the community. Now South Carolina wants a bigger piece of the auto pie with Tupelo getting Toyota and Chattanooga getting VW. Cities understand how much these kinds of enterprises can mean to the economy and the spinoffs of businesses and research that come with them. It is not a freebie folks. The incentives are only the beginning of the costs. Think of having children as the analogy. The birth is only the beginning of the costs of providing for and sustaining. Same is true with luring large corporations. While in both instances the long-term costs are worth it, communities need to know two things as they venture into big-time economic recruitment: you will pay early and often. But to even be in the running you have got to get your community competitive--with a strong workforce and good quality of life. It is not just about the "mega-site."