Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Talking about the future of Indy's neighborhoods
Posted by Rita Kohn on Tue, May 1, 2012 at 4:00 PM
Bill Taft, executive director of Local Initiatives Support Corporation Indianapolis (LISC), opened up the night by introducing Vision 20/20, which he said lays out "a plan for the future that will bring the changes we started with the Near Eastside Super Bowl Legacy Project to more urban neighborhoods across Indianapolis."
LISC, a national organization with headquarters in New York City, was formed in 1979-80 to provide funding and support for grass-roots initiatives to build sustainable communities. LISC immediately gained visibility in the South Bronx, Boston and Chicago. The Indianapolis branch was formed in 1992 to help empower neighborhood leaders to energize residents through one-on-one conversations.
While Mass Ave and Fountain Square have been the most touted accomplishments, LISC's imprint is evident in other neighborhoods, where they've helped residents to set goals, develop and carry out a plan of action, evaluate degrees of success and raise up new leadership.
A panel of five, responding to questions raised by Erika Smith, Indianapolis Star columnist, reflected on their recent accomplishments to provide models for "Planning and Sustaining Urban Neighborhoods." Generally, a neighborhood seeks ways to expand investment in housing and other real estate, increase family income and wealth, stimulate economic development, improve access to quality education and public transportation and support healthy environments and lifestyles.
Deron Kintner, executive director-general counsel of Indianapolis Bond Bank, outlined the importance "of having people live in the urban core" to achieve income to support these goals and the now essential goal of most efficient energy use.
The panelists included Joe Bowling, director, Englewood Community Development Corporation; Ron Gifford, executive director, Central Indiana Transit Task Force; David Harris, founder and CEO, The Mind Trust; Maggie Lewis, Indianapolis City-County Council president; and Mark Miles, Central Indiana Corporate Partnership president and CEO.
In keeping with the LISC action plan of engaging one-on-one, I spoke with attendee Joseph F. Albano, Jr., principal of Logika International, LLC. Dr. Albano described himself as an "organizational systems psychologist."
Logika's services almost mirror LISC's in developing leadership for the common good. Albano underscored the importance of diverse groups working together and emphasized the essentiality of having a cluster of activities going on simultaneously.
"It isn't fixing any one immediate problem and then going on to the next immediate problem, and the next. While you attend to the neighborhood's infrastructure needs, you have to be building community capitol and community capabilities AND show people why they should live there, work there, raise families there, go there, spend money there," he said.
He pointed to the importance of making each neighborhood an attractive and inviting place. He pointed out that doing this involves flexibility and visioning for what is yet unknown: "The world is changing so fast. Our schools have to be educating kindergartners for fields of work that don't yet exist."
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