Historically Community Development Corporations were created by, and within, neighborhoods to pursue goals of development within that community. The boards of these Corporations were in the past by and large made up of community members. While many Development Corporations don the mantle and title of Community Development Corporations, what almost all now lack is "Community" involvement. In many, if not most, situations the term Community Development is nothing more than a title to facilitate pursuing funding. Started primarily in inner city neighborhoods these community development corporations continue to find fertile ground for their businesses in inner-city communities, and they improve many communities.
It would indeed be unfortunate if the Community Development Corporations found themselves fighting the resident groups of communities in these same neighborhoods. Much of the success of such Development Corporations has always been dependent upon those neighborhoods that the Corporations have a symbiotic relationship with. Community Development Corporations receive a great deal of their funding from this relationship. If conflict arose as a general policy between such groups and the neighborhoods, it would be bad for both. Indeed Neighborhoods would lose a great resource, but Community Development Corporations would lose their reason for even existing. I say this as a warning that WE ALL have to consider. Community Development Corporations are a vehicle to get Neighborhoods where they wish to go, neighborhoods removing the gas, (support for funding efforts), will quickly bring those vehicles to a standstill. While some politically powerful "Community Development Corporations" may continue for some time, the poisoning of their neighborhood environment will eventually kill them. With the present competition for dollars, and in particular government generated dollars, no development corporation can long stand a concerted lobbying effort by a community to cut off those dollars. Surrounded by a sea of antipathy, such a corporation is doomed. For a good lessen in Community Development and Housing Corporations failures look at the old Phillips Neighborhood for a good example. While other Community Developers got rich picking the bones of those disasters, it should have been a warning to them of their own mortality. There are just too many other places to put the limited funding available without the controversy. Government and foundation support sources simply go somewhere else. The potential and embarrassment for being included in lawsuits is more than enough reason funding sources to look at other "more deserving" applications. Powerful politically connected organizations, such as PPL, can look to receive support from their political cronies for a while, but soon that support becomes an embarrassment and will go away. While rich, powerful, non-profits may have tremendous ability to leverage support, usually their people are in communities to do business, and live other places. They do not vote in the communities they seek to control, and as such any long lasting opposition from a community will eventually make that community a very bad place to do business. Just as Non-Profit developers have the "Consortium of Community Development Corporations" to protect their interests, it has been suggested that a "Consortium of Impacted Neighborhoods" needs to be created. The purpose of such a "Consortium" would be the mutual defense and self-protection from City and Non-Profit policies considered damaging or detrimental to the neighborhood resident's interest. Hopefully the "Consortium of Community Development Corporations" organization and such a consortium of the actual "Communities" would not have diametrically opposing interests. While the Bradley Amendment was onerous to some, it was written directly out of "Holman Decree" language. Minneapolis was a signing party and agreed to that decree. Other language can be crafted that will limit the ability of unscrupulous developers to concentrate poverty and social problems in a few "impacted", discriminated against, poor neighborhoods that contain large minority populations. Community Development Corporations lobbying to remove the 1/4-mile ordinance and not address concerns about "Concentration" issues is a sure means of creating the terminal impetus towards an open conflict with the neighborhoods where those developers do business. Community Development Corporations need to be aware of the potential disaster such open conflict could cause for both the legitimate neighborhoods and the developers. There is a trend for Minneapolis neighborhoods to take more authority over the planning, needs assessment, and recruitment of developers for their areas. This effort will leave most "Community Development Corporations" more time for being the Real Estate Holding Companies, Rental Property Managers, and Rental Real Estate developers they have become, and where their true interest lays. This trend offers good opportunities for "Community Developers" as well as the actual Communities and Neighborhoods as long as each understands its role in the improvement of "Communities". A failure to honor the bounds of those roles, or CDC's presenting themselves as "Citizen Participation", by unscrupulous developers, is the danger that threatens both communities and these businesses. I would be happy to speak in greater detail about these issues with those interested. Hopefully responsible CDC's will join with Neighborhoods against the unscrupulous ones to save this resource for the Communities of Minneapolis. After all Neighborhoods can, and will, exist without CDC's. The same cannot be said for CDC's. If you take the community out of CDC's they are nothing more than businesses seeking to take advantage of the business opportunities that will NOT exist in "Communities". Jim Graham, Ventura Village _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
