No Silver Bullets

Stabilizing and bringing new investment into a neighborhood that has been on a continuing trajectory of decline for over fifty years is not simple. As we often caution our clients when discussing revitalization efforts “It didn’t get this way overnight; it won’t be fixed overnight.” This is an important lesson for those who would enter into the fray—regardless of how well-intended—with the notion that one big project will stem the exodus of homeowners or merchants and reverse disinvestment. Whether it is overly optimistic naiveté or bravado, it is foolhardy, if not dangerous.

Silver bullets, those photo-op-worthy, one-off projects promoted as a remedy for ailing communities, tend to raise hopes and then dash them all over again once the luster of new construction fades and the realization settles in that the community is still not on a sustained, positive path. A failed revitalization effort can be as destructive to residents’ sense of hope as the loss of a cherished church building, a local school, or a neighborhood market.

If you could quantify the hope embodied in a community and chart it along a timeline, I venture it would look similar to a chart of more tangible metrics of community stability—levels of private investment, vacancy rates, educational attainment, employment, and so on. Introduce the silver bullet project along the timeline and it may cause a temporary upswing but without the complement of other timely and transformative actions circumstances will eventually give way to the preceding momentum of decline.

Silver bullets are seductive. They are easy to describe and so they are easy to sell. They fit neatly into press releases and campaign slogans. They can be accomplished in one term in office—the bigger projects might require a second term. Sadly though, most do not deliver any substantive improvement to the community.

Community Garden (photo courtesy YWCA)

If it takes a village to raise a child, what does it take to raise a village?

Community decline is much too complex for simple solutions, regardless of how magnanimous. Revitalization must be holistic and get at the root causes of decline, simultaneously, if at all possible. If it cannot be done simultaneously, the various parts must be implemented in quick succession.

In the case of a low-income community the reasons why individuals raised in poverty tend to stay in poverty must be addressed. Funneling money into improvements of the physical place without also making systemic changes that increase educational, social and economic opportunities will likely not produce long-term results. While there is no clear formula for breaking the cycle of generational poverty, education, especially early learning, is crucial to increasing the ability of poor children to develop, learn and lead more successful, productive lives. Fostering stability, security and optimism about the future are also often critical to disrupting the cycle of poverty.

Transforming an impoverished community into an environment that nurtures success will often require physical changes, educational and social service programs and efforts to reduce crime.

A group of nonprofit organizations has embarked on such a comprehensive approach in Birmingham’s Woodlawn community. Through my work at KPS Group, I have had the privilege to serve as a planning and urban design advisor to the Woodlawn Foundation and its partner organizations over the last three years in their efforts to sustainably transform Woodlawn into a community of choice.

Going the Distance

Woodlawn is a predominantly low-income urban neighborhood in eastern Birmingham. It is home to a quaint main street commercial district, several area churches large and small, one of the oldest and grandest public schools in the city, and a considerable stock of historic single-family homes. It is also home to a large concentration of tax delinquent properties, abandoned homes, vacant and underutilized commercial property, crime (both real and perceived), and islands of cheaply built and poorly managed multifamily properties. Similar to the stark contrast between these assets and challenges, community sentiment ranges from proud and optimistic to sour and mistrustful.

Woodlawn became, after decades of continued and mostly unabated decline, a community of last resort—a condition, which the Woodlawn Foundation, YWCA Central Alabama, REV Birmingham, the Church of the Highlands’ Dream Center, and Cornerstone Schools joined forces, to change. Inspired by the success of the revitalization of the Eastlake neighborhood in Atlanta, Georgia, the Woodlawn Foundation engaged Purpose-Built Communities, a national community revitalization advisory group involved in the Eastlake initiative, and local planning consultants KPS Group to craft a holistic strategy to revive the Woodlawn area.

The strategy that emerged from meetings with merchants, residents, nonprofit representatives, local church leaders, and city and school officials identified several improvement areas necessary to putting the community on a sustainable, positive trajectory: cradle-to-career educational pipeline; quality, affordable and mixed-income housing; crime deterrence and public safety; and economic opportunity. The overall strategy includes other objectives that overlap or supplement the primary action areas such as community image, health, transit access and pedestrian mobility.

As the Woodlawn United partnership formed and we began preparing the revitalization strategy, the YWCA completed a substantial, early phase of investments in affordable housing adjacent to Woodlawn’s historic commercial district. The combination of renovated, re-designed apartments, newly constructed duplexes and the Interfaith Hospitality House had an immediate impact and is serving as a stable nucleus around which a mixed-income housing development is being planned. In 2013 the American Planning Association is honoring the YWCA’s YWoodlawn program with their esteemed National Planning Excellence Award for Advancing Diversity & Social Change Honor of Paul Davidoff.

Dansby Court (photo courtesy YWCA)

Since the formation of Woodlawn United, the Foundation and its partners have been hard at work executing the plan we helped them prepare. Woodlawn Foundation has acquired neglected, tax delinquent housing and vacant properties for a multi-phase, mixed-income housing initiative, for which they also received City approval of a Redevelopment District and rezoning with unanimous support from Woodlawn’s neighborhood associations. KPS helped the Foundation acquire a community challenge grant for a beautification project now underway in the commercial district and CMAQ funding to improve sidewalks, lighting and drainage on neighborhood streets. REV Birmingham and the Woodlawn Foundation are adaptively reusing a vacant commercial building that will serve as a hub for small business and social entrepreneurial development. A Citizens on Patrol program was created in 2012 in partnership with the City Police Department. The Foundation is also working with Purpose Built Communities to plan and fund an early learning center—a central component in the educational objective of the revitalization effort.

Look for more news here on what is happening in Woodlawn and how this holistic revitalization effort is helping to turn Woodlawn back into a community of hope and a community of choice.

But don’t expect any silver bullets.