All it would take is for City leaders and housing advocates to gather the courage to go to battle with the fortress neighborhoods and place future affordable and supportive housing where there are also dollars and votes. Please don't blame the suburbs for the sins of Minneapolis.You know, in the State right now there is this battle going on between city and suburb. Ironically it seems it's going on right here within the City as well. "Fortress" neighborhoods is not a term I particularly like. I'm having enough trouble trying to figure out impacted, non-impacted, protection, revitalization, and redirection. Undoubtedly someone is cooking up even more labels somewhere as I write.
In my last post I asked that we stop stereotyping neighborhoods and talk about specific projects. Yes, it was tongue in cheek to say that Lynnhurst has voted in favor of "every" affordable housing project for the last ten years. But it's true. (And yes, there's only been one!) But using phrases like "the courage to go to battle with fortress neighborhoods" over simplifies the problem and is misdirected. I'm not even sure what "going to battle" means, so perhaps Tom B. would elaborate further.
While Tom Berthiaume writes "All it would take...", Tom Leighton's post yesterday showed in part why there is no single answer to the question of why there aren't more affordable housing projects in non-impacted neighborhoods. The shortest of his reasons was #5: "Non-impacted neighborhoods sometimes oppose affordable housing projects." (I would emphasize the "sometimes.") Yet it is this reason that many people jump to first, and it yields stereotypical labels like "fortress neighborhoods."
The point I would like to make here is that if all were going to do is point fingers at each other and yell out stereotypical phrases, we're not going to get very far along the road of solving the problem. We're simply going to all get in our defensive postures and lob words back and forth.
Please know that there are many people throughout the city - in all neighborhoods - that are working to solve this problem, and the best way we can do that is by working together. Call me naive (I'm not), but I believe that there is a great desire to site affordable housing here in SW Mpls. I know for a fact that there are a great many people out here who will work (and are working) very hard to make it happen. Work with us. Don't stereotype our neighborhoods. Let's find positive ways to prod and encourage each other in this effort.
Paul Lohman Lynnhurst
Paul Lohman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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