The vision is not just to increase services for Poughkeepsie youth - the vision is to build a new, state-of-the-art Youth Opportunity Center that will set a standard for youth empowerment and create a model for a homegrown approach to workforce development as a means of supporting increased economic activity.
Read MoreWritten by Mike Higbee
Serious social problems such as poverty, low education levels, crime, and a host of health issues are often interrelated. They frequently reinforce and compound each other. Many organizations are addressing one or more of those issues, but typically each organization is focused on only a piece of a more complex set of problems. The public sector tends to do this through large, bureaucratic silos, while the not-for-profit sector is incredibly fragmented. Many organizations do good work. Unfortunately, though, fragmented and siloed approaches to complex problems seldom lead to lasting impacts.
Read MoreThe John Marshall Neighborhood Opportunity Hub on the far eastside of Indianapolis solves a list of community needs with private-public collaboration at an abandoned high school in one of the city’s most highly populated distressed neighborhoods.
Read MoreOur team has worked with community leaders to build growth plans, message change initiatives, and redevelop neighborhoods for over forty years. Since 2014, we have specifically advanced the concept of Neighborhood Opportunity Hubs.
Read MoreIn 2017, the City of Elkhart adopted the River District Revitalization Master Plan. Developed with broad community stakeholder involvement, the plan was built on the previous decades of investment in Elkhart’s struggling Main Street. This effort shared a vision for the River District to be an expansion of downtown, as a walkable, mixed-use neighborhood redeveloped on 100-plus acres of parking lots, out lot retailers, former industrial sites, and auto-repair shops. Over 65% of the $300-plus million mixed-use development has been realized within five-years. The area continues to attract significant new private investment.
Read MoreMost cities lack experienced leadership in change management. This, along with the resounding challenges listed below have compounded due to the pandemic and the overall contentiousness of current times.
Read MoreIn this new age of a pandemic, racial tension, political divide, global power shifts, redefinition of family and individual identities, and the inequality of accessible and quality educational opportunities leading to prosperity, we are reminded that the quest for freedom and the American Way remains much the same as our forefathers intended to achieve in their early fight for justice and the pursuit of happiness for all.
Read MoreMichael Hicks, the George and Frances Ball Distinguished Professor of Economics and the director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University, posted an article titled, A not-so-quiet revolution in economic development. In this, he states how many Indiana economic development practices in the past 50 years have been sad efforts of "romancing the smokestack."
Read MoreRecently we came to understand “Placemaking” and how it is the process by which we have been engaging in the completion of community projects. In recent years, we have completed several private-public projects that have involved community input and engagement during the stages of conceptualization, planning, design, investment, construction, development, and evaluation to assure that spaces fully engage their constituents.
Read MorePrivate and public leadership must organize and collaborate to successfully turnaround a neighborhood. Together, they must be facilitated to lead through the complexities of transforming each neighborhood within a city, especially to the point that most cities need to be transformed.
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