Naming of a community is a political act. And the list managers desire that we adhere to official names for neighborhoods, while understandable and possibly justifiable, raises one of my pet complaints. I may be off base here, but my understanding is that a significant number of "Neighborhood" names now in use in Minneapolis came not from a neighborhoods self generated sense of identify but rather from a city planners exercise in the mid 1960's to create a uniform map of city neighborhood names. In many area where no existing names were in common use, neighborhood schools were used as proxy names for the newly drawn neighborhoods. Again I may be all wet, but my understanding is that these many of these names had no precedence of local usage prior to the planners act of map making.
I live in the NENA area which according to the planners maps is made up of four neighborhoods: The Keywadin, Minnehaha, Winonah, and Morris Park. I suspect that none of these neighborhoods had a prior identity as being four different neighborhoods, and that in general, prior to the planners designation, the residents thereof never thought of themselves as having lived in a neighborhood so named. Why does this matter? Naming has power. In the case of neighborhoods it helps to create a sense of commonality, belonging and mutual interest that is beneficial to developing harmony and collective self interest. It also establishes borders and insiders and outsiders. This second trend while also natural is the Achilles heal of community and citizen participation, in that it tends to divide interests, and undermine cooperation on a larger scale. It also creates a paradigm distinction in the way people look at issues into at least two classes. Those who look at issues from a cellular, neighborhood level, i.e.., as an amalgam of individual neighborhoods, or from a more organic overview, looking at the city or region as a whole. Thus natural conflicts form. City councilors, and staff look at the same problems from different vantage points than those of neighborhood activists. Of course both views are legitimate, although the responses they dictate may conflict. The conflict is then dealt with via the political process. I live in the NENA project area for NRP purposes and the Minnehaha neighborhood from the city planners perspective. In this instance the name fits because we are near Minnehaha Falls. We were named however, after the Junior High that used to be here, not the Falls, although of course the school was named after the falls which is virtually but not quite the same thing. Thus indirectly we are well named. Our three sister neighborhoods may be more or less happy with their designation as neighborhoods by virtue of the school building in their midst. The NRP boundaries that establish the NENA area constitute natural boundaries encompassing our four neighborhoods. It makes geographical sense for us to consider ourselves one larger neighborhood, rather than four separate neighborhoods. Our community consists of that part of Minneapolis South of Minnehaha Parkway, East of Lake Nokomis. We have hard boundaries on all four sides of us. Minnehaha Creek and/or the Parkway on the north, Lake Nokomis to the west, the airport to the south and the river or Hwy 55 to our east. To build a true sense of community this neighborhood needs to define itself in the common mind of its residents, not according to the names placed upon it by a bureaucratic planner, but rather in a more organic manner. Even less appealing than the planners name is the acronym NENA for Nokomis East Neighborhood. However accurate, an acronym doesn't make it in my idea of organic language. I have previously support borrowing from the former area merchants associations name for our mini downtown. They referred to themselves as Nokomis Village. I still like that image, enlarged to encompass not just the commercial node but all of the four neighborhood community. Some rejected this notion as being too closely tied to the businesses. I am convinced such shared identity would be good for both the businesses and the neighborhood. I consider it a point of political debate, and will probably persist in referring to myself as being from Nokomis Village, even if it does not appear on the approved list of neighborhood names. A good poet may be able to spark an alternative identity for my neighborhood in the coming years. I'm not wed to Nokomis Village as a name, but I am to it as an idea. Perhaps I should refer to it as a rose? Earl Netwal 5344 36th Ave S. Minneapolis, MN 55417 612-724-4392 REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
