Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 4, 1994 TAG: 9405110056
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-14 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Driven by a federal deadline that leaves hardly enough time to do a decent job, the city has held town meetings and formed advisory subcommittees to set goals and devise strategies to improve economic development, human services, transportation, housing, the environment, drug-abuse prevention, public safety and education in those neighborhoods. A tall order, but the city should be doing this anyway.
If the resulting plan is good, Roanoke could become a federal "enterprise community." But it should benefit even if that designation isn't won.
If it gets the federal designation, the city will be eligible for a slew of federal and state grants to help implement the plan. But win or lose, the intense planning effort could leave Roanoke with workable plans for continuing to rebuild inner-city neighborhoods.
Not only professional planners and residents are charting strategy. Also involved are people connected to the institutions vital to neighborhoods, if not always thought of as neighbors: businesses, banks, industries, schools. The planning process recognizes that successful change also must involve the people who actually can open - or close - a small shop on the corner, and not just those who want one there.
If this sounds similar to earlier planning efforts, it should. Roanoke has a good record for including citizens in problem-solving, both within city government (Roanoke Vision '93, Roanoke Neighborhood Partnership, the City Manager's Task Force on the Homeless and Drug Strategy Task Force) and outside (the Council of Community Services' Community Plan of Action, The Enterprise Foundation's assessment of housing needs, Total Action Against Poverty's Poverty Strategy Task Force).
Far from being redundant, though, the latest plan promises to draw together previous studies and recommendations, unifying various priorities into one coordinated strategy for attacking neighborhood problems. Earlier studies cover a broad range of topics, but share one overriding objective: promoting neighborhoods' good health. They also share a common characteristic: They have to be acted on to be effective.
Competition should be keen for the federal designation: - there will be enterprise thenif the city fails to win?
Roanoke still will have a blueprint for progress, a plan of action incorporating the results of earlier studies and a few fresh ideas of new participants. Progress isn't apt to be flashy, nothing as imposing as a bank tower or as high profile as a landmark hotel. But the city needs to plan, too, for the sort of steady, incremental improvements that over time can arrest the deterioration of neighborhoods, assist in their recuperation and preserve their recovery.
It is easier, of course, to write out the prescription than to effect the cure, and writing the prescription is no easy job. The city will present its draft proposal to the public and City Council early in June, and submit it to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development by the end of the month. The schedule is absurdly tight for a project as far-ranging as this. And once that's completed, residents, businesses, schools, banks, industries - all the people and institutions that participated in the planning effort - will have just begun their work.
That's because fighting poverty is not a bureaucratic exercise, a work-out for city planners or a game of grantsmanship. Win or lose at HUD, the city still must come together to struggle against one little headache at a time: one overgrown lot, one dilapidated house, one boarded-up business, one bright youngster who sees no future.
by CNB