Erik Riese wrote:
I read recently on this list a few posts – provided below – asking for justification of NRP. I could write a lot on this issue but I'll just offer to meet Bob sometime soon for a brew at that place across from your home. In the meantime, there is a ton of information about the good things NRP has accomplished on the web (http://www.nrp.org).
WM: If you'll look back to the founding paperwork for the NRP, you will see that it divides the 81 neighborhoods into 3 groups. The biggest, most wide-spread neglect was identified in nine neighborhoods. Those 9 neighborhoods got much higher stipends than the others--completely justifiably. If you want to see what was apparently most important to the NRP, you will have to see whether there is appreciable improvement in those neighborhoods. I think it's obvious in Phillips, Central, Lyndale, Corcoran, and Powderhorn on the Southside. I'm not as familiar with where the neighborhoods begin and end in other parts of town, but I do see improvements as I toodle here and there.
Even our failures were instructive. Where we fell apart was in believing we could do a lot of it independently. Thusly, we began by kicking the woo-woo out of MCDA verbally every time they showed up. We seemed to run the gamut from suspicious to downright snarky and vicious. We fought hard and ghetto, but we were mostly nailing our feet to the floor.
We were also totally honked off about the way we perceived the city to have treated us for the previous 30 years or so. The statistics, brought together by Ken Meter for The Alley Newspaper, laid it all out at the same time that the committee of many (Annie Young and Joe Horan were the two I remember as being on that committee, could be wrong. Mayor Frasier was there.) was in the process of pulling the NRP into being.
My observation was that people stayed with the NRP process as long as they could. Some were content to come every three months or so. Some came when there was something to be chosen and voted on. Some, those good souls with duty on their minds and the activists, came faithfully every time, bless them. It was monumentally tough, but it accomplished some things. The biggest change was in our housing, to which we devoted every nickel we could without ignoring what people identified as their needs in terms of infrastructure, including human connection. We put money into our school, our library, our park, and through increased rent for added space, our community center. We put money into our kids. We joined with the other neighborhoods along Lake St. to come up with a plan for Lake St.
We were tight with a nickel till the great debacle, and got the most out of our money that we could. Considering the demographics of Central, overall I think we did pretty well through the NRP. And we had evidence that we had not prospered when the city alone was calling all the shots.
Did everybody participate at all stages? Don't be ridiculous. Did all the people who should have been there stay at the table? No. Was everybody equally welcome? No. We got on each other's nerves, as humans are won't to do, and we were too stubborn to back down and learn to talk to each other. Phase II, though, does have some possibilities.
Terrific experiment. And it accomplished some things. There were, however, some bitter pills to swallow, not the least of which is that our housing stock has become so costly as a result of the NRP that many of us can barely afford to stay here. Is the Theory of Unintended Consequences related to Murphy's Law?
WizardMarks, Central ________________________________
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