Smart Communities

Preserving the (Spooky) Past

Since it's Halloween I thought I'd pass along some different -- and spooky -- ways of preserving the past.  Most of us think of revolutionary war reenactments or historical recreations like Williamsburg or the popular Main Streets program when imagining how communities can preserve their past.  Increasingly popular, though, are events like ghost walks that lead participants through the community and share the history of past community members, buildings, events, etc.

Interestingly, some are looking to use the ghosts of their past as lures for the tourists of the future.  Carroll County, Virginia residents are being encouraged by a consultant to create tourism around a famous courtroom shootout that occurred almost a century ago.  According to a Richmond Times-Dispatch story the suggestion of using this event to attract economic development has the area residents talking.

Other locales already use the ghosts of their past to lure travellers.  Several years ago the USA Today published a list of 10 bed & breakfasts where visitors can "get in bed with a ghost" and a quick search of "bed and breakfast" with "ghost" yields almost half a million hits.  Clearly this is a formula that works.  Less visible but highly popular are site-specific ghost tours like the former penitentiary in West Virginia where those interested can be led by flashlight through the facility while being told about its infamous former residents.

Not a long-term solution by any means but a timely one that fits well with community efforts to celebrate local history.

America's Safest Cities

San Jose just earned a new title -- Safest City in America.  This according to a new survey by the Morgan Quitno Press that was based on violent crime statistics collected by the U.S. Census Bureau.  Technically the title would look something like "safest city in America with more than 500,000 residents" but this is clearly not as catchy.  According to the San Jose Mercury News this is a title they have expected for some time now.

Of course, lists like these can't just have a best - there's also a worst.  St. Louis earned the designation as the most dangerous city in America.  The mayor of St. Louis, Francis Slay, disputes the findings on the basis of the survey methodology.

Surveys and rankings can sometimes be helpful to stir public discussion on an issue but you have to feel bad for places like St. Louis that end up on the bottom.  Rewarding cities like San Jose for their efforts is great, that hurts noone, but cities can also earn poor reputations on the basis of rankings like these and these labels rarely are any help in solving tough problems.

Becoming A Learning to Finish Community

We're only two days removed from the launch of the Learning to Finish campaign and we're already receiving inquiries about the application process for new partner communities.  Here's what we can relate about the process of choosing the next 23 Learning to Finish communities.

One sign that we're getting close will be the announcement of all the names on our blue ribbon commission.  We have just a few more members to add and then the process of choosing criteria and announcing the application process will begin.  The application process will probably start in early 2007 and a decision made on new additions later in the summer of 2007.

If you're interested in keeping track of the campaign's progress then stay tuned to this blog, we'll make regular announcements in addition to our usual posts about community development issues.  To receive summaries of blog posts by e-mail then enter your address above the button labeled "Get email updates".  You'll receive an e-mail from FeedBlitz requesting you confirm your subscription by clicking a link.  FeedBlitz has been a great service and is easy to unsubscribe from if you grow tired of receiving updates daily.

Rural Homelessness Demands Our Attention

It's getting cooler out there and the cold weather brings increased concern for the homeless population.  We can tell because the traffic patterns on our Solutions for America website change, more people visit with an interest in homelessness solutions than other times of the year.  Right now the top three search strings bringing people to the site are all related to homelessness.

When we think about homelessness we often think about big cities and the well-documented problems they have with the homeless.  Headline News ran a segment the other day on the homelessness problem in Los Angeles, for instance, and New York City's struggles with its homeless population are reported extensively.  But what about rural areas?  Don't they have homeless people as well?  Why don't we hear about it?

Well, as this article indicates, only about 9% of all homeless are found in small towns.  Still, this means somewhere between 50-60,000 Americans are going homeless in small towns every evening.  With much of the attention paid to the larger numbers coming out of central cities there is little emphasis placed on rural areas and the burden they bear with regard to homelessness.  This burden is different, too, from what cities bear.  Rural areas often must focus on outreach efforts to locate all the homeless in the area -- failure to engage in these sorts of initiatives also contributes to what must be low numbers for the rural homeless.

There are a number of ways to put a face on homelessness.  Single men are often the face of homelessness, they comprise about 60% of the homeless population, but we shouldn't forget about the number of families that go homeless.  The effects here are devestating for parents and children.  A great article in The Capital Times urges schools to actively look for children that are homeless.  The author of the article felt compelled to write after discovering how many school districts in Wisconsin were reporting no homeless children - a statistical impossibility and one based, he felt, on the school's unwillingness to actually locate these children.

Those who work with homeless may be interested in an upcoming conference in Washington, DC from November 6-7 sponsored by Beyond Shelter and the National Alliance to End Homelessness.  These are largely workshops for practitioners and carry a fee of $300.

Dropouts on YouTube

In addition to yesterday's post about community development on YouTube I thought I'd add something about dropouts on YouTube.  There is surprisingly little.  The Los Angeles Times produced a substantive video on the high school dropout problem in Los Angeles that is worth watching.  Also, an enterprising student at Chatsworth High in the city of Los Angeles produced his own video on the problem by interviewing students, teachers, and administrators in his school.  This video is extremely good for someone so young.  There are also a number of public service announcements about the dropout problem available on YouTube although none that seem quite as effective as the one currently running nationally featuring cheerleaders (of all ages.)

Today we're in Washington, DC at the National Press Club to announce the launch of our Learning to Finish™ campaign.  I'll spare you the links to all the materials we've produced to date -- those can be found in posts about the campaign from earlier this week or all last week.

Community Development on Film

One of the biggest stories on the web has been the emergence (and subsequent sale to Google) of the video uploading/viewing website YouTube.com.  There is something for literally everyone on YouTube from reruns of favorite TV shows or film clips to original videography (like the series about Chad Vader, fictitious brother of Darth, who is the night manager at a small grocery store.)

What does this have to do with community development?  Well, there are a number of videos made to highlight communities and neighborhood initiatives across the U.S.  A resident of Raymond, WA produced a video highlighting his town and inviting other residents to join him in revitalization efforts.  Another video discusses the advantages of community supported agriculture and yet another documents efforts with youth in northeast Louisiana.  There are a number of videos by community foundations and organizations promoting community development efforts, these are fairly straightforward, but there are also some segments of news shows reporting on strategic economic development initiatives such as this one in the city of Fortuna.

The production quality is low on most of these videos, these aren't like the public service announcements produced by the Ad Council.  At the same time there's a real charm to the sort of "genuine" feel achieved by a homemade film.  Maybe this will give some of our readers ideas for capturing either their communities or their efforts on film.

What to do with 140,000 High School Dropouts?

The next few years are going to yield some whopping figures as dropout rates are re-calculated to give a more accurate picture of what's happening in our schools.  One of the early warning signs appeared in New York City this month as a new study found 140,000 students aged 16-21 have either left school or are so far behind that it is unlikely they will graduate.  It is one thing to point to the dropout rate at 40-50% of a population but to actually see a number like 140,000 -- larger than most other cities or towns in New York -- is simply breathtaking.

One reason dropout rates often appear so low is because many states, 28 in all, still allow students to drop out at age 16.  The National Education Association and National Parent Teacher's Association recently urged these states to enact legislation raising the dropout age to 18.  North Carolina is looking to follow suit but not every state is interested.  In this recent article, it's revealed that some states find that a dropout age of 16 keeps troublemakers our of school and lowers the costs of operating schools.

We'll continue our blogging this week but more sporadically than usual as we gear up for our launch of the Learning to Finish campaign on Wednesday.

Dropout Prevention Discussion and Campaign Launch

Next Wednesday, October 25th we will be officially launching the Learning to Finish Campaign at the National Press Club.  There will be a discussion panel with a distinguished list of guests giving answers to the question of why the dropout problem goes beyond the schools.  To learn more about the morning event check out our media advisory on U.S. Newswire.  There is a brief description of our campaign in a PNN Online press release and more details, including a discussion guide and our annual newsletter, on the Pew Partnership for Civic Change website.

This week the blog has basically been devoted to our efforts to get the word out about the Learning to Finish Campaign.  Hopefully you'll check out some of the dropout prevention resources we've listed and learn how to make this issue a priority in your community.  Reducing the dropout rate has so many positive effects for communities on such a range of issues that it can only be ignored at a community's peril.

Next week we'll do more of a mix of stories on other community development issues but we will continue, as the Learning to Finish Campaign progresses, to include a healthy amount of coverage on the dropout rate, its effect on communities, and what smart communities are doing to gain traction on the issue.

Sharp Increase in Volunteerism Among College Students

The Corporation for National and Community Service released a report on Monday that indicates American college students are volunteering more than ever.  A Corporation press release states that "college student volunteering increased by 20 percent between 2002 and 2005, more than doubling the growth in the adult volunteering rate."  College students who were in high school or their first year of college when the September 11th attacks occurred appear to be those driving the increase in volunteerism.  You can download the full report in PDF or take a look at the executive summary.

This report also bears some good news for reducing the dropout rate.  One of the most popular volunteer activities for college students is mentoring and this is one of the few activities that have proven to be successful in encouraging young people to remain in school.  Mentoring (23.8%) is second only to tutoring (26.6%) for college student volunteers according to the Corporation's report.

Annual Pew Partnership Newsletters

We've made so many changes to the Pew Partnership for Civic Change websites over the past week that I thought I'd mention them in some smaller separate posts.  One of the changes we made was to post our annual newsletters on the main Pew Partnership website.  The annual newsletter is named for one of our most successful and longest-running initiatives, Solutions for America, which resulted in a number of the publications you'll find on our resources page.

Below is a brief introduction to each newsletter and its contents, click on the link for each year to download the newsletter in PDF.

Solutions for America (2005) - (PDF, 3.8MB)
Using Community Assets to Build a Brighter Future
Cokie Roberts, Emmett Carson, and Marguerite Sallee Named as New Board Members
Getting Started with Asset-Based Development
Interview with Anne Pope (Federal Co-Chair, Appalachian Regional Commission)
Reaching the Public

Solutions for America (2006) - (PDF, 2.7MB)
Learning to Finish Campaign Launched
Knight Foundation Funds Learning to Finish Wiki
Interview with Suzanne Morse
Public Allies Wins 2006 Civic Change Award
Virginia Tech and Pew Partnership Offer New Series