Neighborhood planning by and for neighborhoods

One thing I think about more and more is for neighborhoods to create their own land use and resource plans (neighborhood plans). It can be done as both an educational and organizing tool, and can help shape people's visions about stability, growth, and change, and provide people with an action plan for moving forward.

There are a number of jurisdictions such as Minneapolis and Seattle, where this is done as a matter of course, as part of the normal municipal planning process.

In New Orleans, a neighborhood not happy with being defined as "potential green space" in the post-Katrina planning environment, has taken such a tack, according to this article in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, "Locals not waiting to be told what to do." From the article:

Big green spots covering portions of flooded neighborhoods on a map of a rebuilt New Orleans might have discouraged some people. But in the densely built Broadmoor neighborhood, the symbol marking the area for possible new green space lit a fire under its neighborhood group.

"It didn't devastate us; it pissed us off," said Virginia Saussy Bairnsfather, a board member for the Broadmoor Improvement Association. Within weeks of the map's unveiling in January by Mayor Ray Nagin's Bring New Orleans Back Commission, membership in the neighborhood group jumped 400%...

But Broadmoor residents, like grass-roots community groups all across the city, are moving ahead on their own without waiting for the expert-laced planning exercise promised by Nagin's commission. They are polling residents, creating planning committees and enlisting the help of an unnamed Ivy League university in writing a redevelopment plan.

Fearing they may lose control of what happens to their communities - especially with some areas at risk of being declared no longer viable, and subject to clearing - activists in Lakeview, Gentilly and eastern New Orleans are calling meetings, mulling issues, debating what kinds of changes they will favor or oppose.

Much of the work is brainstorming and data-gathering. In some cases it has taken a sophisticated turn, involving architects or planners who donate their time. "There has been no direction given (from City Hall), so neighborhoods have to fend for themselves," said Latoya Cantrell, president of the Broadmoor group. "We're on our own."

The "How to Turn A Place Around" Workshop and Workbook, the Asset-Based Community Development Institute, and other planning resources (i.e., the Main Street Approach) are processes that communities can use.

Also see the Neighborhood Planning website.

Index Keywords: neighborhood-revitalization; civic-engagement