Building Open Opportunity Structures Together

Mission

BOOST is a creative community solutions organization that develops and utilizes innovative and customized strategies to build structured relationships between residents, businesses, organizations, and government agencies that lead to beneficial economic, social, and educational opportunities and outcomes in underserved and emerging urban neighborhoods.

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CHALLLENGES, DEFINITIONS, AND ASSUMPTIONS:

“The housing market and discrimination sort people into different neighbourhoods, which in turn shape residents’ lives – and deaths. Bluntly put, some neighbourhoods are likely to kill you” - -(Logan, 2003, p. 33)

Chronic Challenges and Standard Definitions in Under-Served & Emerging Urban Neighborhoods and Markets:

1) Concentrated Poverty: Concentrated poverty occurs where 40 % or more of a neighborhood’s residents live at or below the poverty line. Concentrated poverty is a result of two major factors:

2) a broken opportunity structure or structures and lack of individual initiative.

BOOST defines an “opportunity structure” as a formal or informal network between people, between people and institutions, or linkage between institutions that lead to cooperation and beneficial outcomes. Broken opportunity structures are the direct result of uneven investment and/or inadequate linkage of human, technical and financial resources.

Individual Initiative:

“Individual initiative, intelligence, experience, and all the elements of human capital are obviously important. But understanding the opportunity structure in the US today requires complementing what we know about individual characteristics with what we are learning about place. Privilege cannot be understood outside the context of place.”

-- Gregory D. Squires (Chair) and Charis E. Kubrin are in the Department of Sociology, George Washington University, Phillips Hall – Washington D.C.

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Hard Structures & Soft Structures: The Yin & Yang of Urban Revitalization: A Call and Plan for Equitable & Community-First Development, Part 2


Tim Razzaq – October 2005

In part 1 of this series – The Need for an Empowered Old Trenton Neighborhood Coalition – we stated:

"From now into the foreseeable future, we
will be identifying, studying, confronting,and seeking to redirect the social forces - the players, policies, and practices - that have led to concentrated poverty, racial segregation, and closed opportunity structures in the Old Trenton Neighborhood (OTN)."

The circulation of that paper has generated a great amount of interest and concern in the sphere of neighborhood and community development. Individuals who work in the field of development and enhancement of people looked kindly upon the subject. Some individuals who work in the field of development and enhancement of property did not seem to view the issue in a positive light.

For the past year or so, we have been attempting to explain to residents and organizational leaders in the neighborhood and community development arena that we noticed many organizers, developers, and public officials use the terms community and neighborhood interchangeably, as if the two terms are synonymous. For instance, there may be an organization that calls itself, “a community development organization”. In order to understand exactly what that organization is all about, you would have to ask yourself: “when they say ‘community’ development, are they referring to the development of people or the development or property?”

The Old Trenton Neighborhood (OTN) is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Trenton. In fact, from what we have been told, it is one of if not the first residential neighborhoods established in New Jersey’s capital city. Both the buildings and the streets reflect that OTN is, indeed, an old neighborhood as the OTN is an officially designated “historic district”. However, the people who reside and practice their occupations in these buildings and commute along its streetscape are not the same people who resided, worked, and commuted in the neighborhood over a hundred years ago. The Old Trenton Neighborhood has witnessed several changes in the makeup of its community over the years since it was first established. Although the buildings and streetscapes (neighborhood) are relatively intact and preserved, the people (community) have changed and are now in a deteriorated state. We now understand that the term neighborhood represents the building and streets (Hard Structures) and the term community represents the people (Soft Structures). Communities are the occupants of Neighborhoods – or - Soft Structures are occupants of Hard Structures.

So, in order to answer our question regarding “a community development organization”, its track record in regard to the procurement and expenditure of financial, technical, and human resources would have to be examined to make a sound determination as to what that particular organization is all about. Are those resources dedicated to the revitalization and redevelopment of Properties/Hard Structures or the revitalization and redevelopment of People/Soft Structures? If their investment of resources has been primarily dedicated to property, then that organization would have to be classified a neighborhood/hard structure/bricks and mortar organization and treated and approached as such. Therefore, we will likely find that this organization’s “capacities” and “expertise” may be highly developed in the area of buildings and streetscapes, and weak in the area of delivering services to people and communities.

Hard Structures & Soft Structures: The Yin & Yang of Urban Revitalization

When examining the interrelated processes and affects of sprawl, uneven regional development, concentration of poverty and racial segregation, we find that a tremendous amount of financial, technical, and human resources have been invested in Hard Structures. This means that the buildings and streetscapes have benefited tremendously from private and public investment. Housing and economic development agencies in the public arena, as well research and planning departments in private neighborhood development organizations probably have seen a boon in funding opportunities over the past decade or so. Neighborhood Revitalization Tax Credits (NRTC’s), Urban Enterprise Zones, Green Building Tax Certificates, Business Employment Incentive Programs (BEIP’s), Business Retention & Relocation Assistance Grants (BRRAG’s), Brownfields Redevelopment Programs, and Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT’s) are just a few of the myriad hard structure incentive-driven subsidies designed to lure financial investment.

Most recently, the issues of violent crime, gangs, joblessness, and community quality of life have dominated the headlines in the major metropolitan print and broadcast news media. Ironically, hurricanes Katrina and Rita have done more to highlight the plights of poverty, racism, and the class divide than have any other major events in recent history. People all over the country and, in fact, the world are questioning the how a country with such financial, technical, and human strength and prowess could have allowed a growing number of its own citizenry to suffer in such quagmires as neighborhoods and urban cores wherein people do not even have the capacity to escape a storm even with as much as a week’s notice. Put another way, Hard Structure/Property investment and subsidy has not lead to Soft Structure/People security and advancement. The Yin and Yang of American social and economic development is out of harmony and imbalanced.

In fact, you hear the very same public and private players whose policies and practices have lead to concentrated poverty, racial segregation, and closed opportunity structures in the Old Trenton Neighborhood (OTN) now adopting “regional approaches” in terms of housing development and are now the champions of “regional equity.” Even in this regard, these social entrepreneurs still fall well short or the mark in the investment of their resources into soft structures/people and communities. This is why, as stated in part 1 of this series, we pointed out the need to organize an empowered coalition dedicated to soft structure/people development. This effort in soft-structure focused community organizing and coalition-building should not be viewed as a competing force to the bricks and mortar organizations and companies, but as an attempt to balance the “yin” of neighborhood property/hard structure revitalization and “yang” of community and people/soft structure revitalization.

In order to bring this balance into fruition, we have decided to begin to create and Build Open Opportunity Structures (BOOST). Over the past few months, we have been asking that conscientious and community-first oriented individuals and organizations join and assist us in creating this balance. We need to develop capacity in terms of financial, technical, and human resource identification, procurement, and allocation in an effort to BOOST the soft structure of community to a level of balance with the investment others have made into the redevelopment and preservation of the hard structured neighborhood.

Urban revitalization and neighborhood restoration has to take on a more meaningful, substantive, and balanced approach in terms of investment and subsidy with the understanding that people are just as, if not more, vital than property. We have already witnessed what decades of disinvestments in people and the uneven developments of property have wrought. Just take a look at the crime, unemployment, and poverty rates in and around to properties owned, managed, and controlled by these bricks and mortar companies misnomered as “community development” organizations. They are now designated and targeted, via municipal ordinance as “anti gang-loitering” zones! It is ironic or symptomatic, or - both? Honesty is the first sign of sincerity.


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Loyalty Matters
“An Interlude”

“The housing market and discrimination sort people into different neighbourhoods, which in turn shape residents’ lives – and deaths. Bluntly put, some neighbourhoods are likely to kill you”
(Logan, 2003, p. 33)

Tim Razzaq – October 12, 2005

Those individuals and groups of individuals who gather and communicate privately and mistakenly or errantly accuse those of us who have pointed out the needs, ways, and means of Building Open Opportunity Structures for the express benefit of the people and families who have been relegated to the quagmire of so-called “pockets of poverty”, either have not done their homework or are either consciously or unconsciously complicit with the players, policies, and practices that have lead to concentrated poverty, uneven development, and closed opportunity structures. These gatekeepers and social entrepreneurs are either knowingly or unknowingly a part of the “opportunity denied” structure of society. In spite of their capacity and “expertise” and substantial budgets funded by public funds and private philanthropy, they refuse to deliver the goods to the communities - individuals and families – who are most in need. They don’t serve the benefit of “the least” of society.

The empirical evidence suggests that “race” and “place” do matter. Those with eyes to see and the willingness and ability to act have chosen to research, identify, confront and seek to redirect the social forces that have absolutely produced the social and economic circumstances that have plagued neighborhoods and communities throughout America’s “urban cores” – the Old Trenton Neighborhood (OTN) not withstanding.

Since our re-entry into the OTN, we have had the opportunity to work and dialogue with dozens of residents, business and property owners, organizational leaders and their support personnel, and public officials (as well as “hopefuls”.) As a result of these “intimate” interactions, we have been able to ascertain or understand:

v The Community’s Major Challenges
v The Neighborhood’s Inherent Assets
v And The Players, Policies, and Practices of the “Opportunity Denied” Ilk

To help inform our vision, mission, and approach to the above-cited neighborhood and community challenges, assets, and deniers of opportunity, we enlisted the advice and counsel of some of the most respected authorities on such issues. We, then, began to put our findings into writing and, where we did not have capacity, used the writings of others to help inform and instruct you - the general public.

To Whom Much is Given…

Since March of 2004, many people have voluntarily or involuntarily communicated to us the root causes of the neighborhood and community’s ills. However, we have been hearing about and witnessing the same chronic challenges since our arrival in Trenton in 1988. During this period – through our distribution of books, facilitation of lectures and workshops, coordination of youth and adult programming, and provision of organizational support services – we have met not dozens but, literally, thousands of people in all walks of life. This intensive interaction with such a volume of people over such a short period of time has helped to both inform our knowledge base and instruct our direction. Most of these persons and families still play a vital role in our work and in the social structure of their respective communities and are still available and open to us when called upon.


Loyalty Matters

On the other side, a small – select few – of those whom we have provided timely, relevant, reliable, and comprehensive information regarding some complex issues and challenges, have not reciprocated. In fact, they gather amongst themselves to criticize, condemn, and complain – to say the least. Just as in the community-at-large there exists a few chronic and repeat offenders of violent crime and behavior (nuisances), there exists a hand few of individuals and organizations that are the chronic violators of the public’s trust and our personal loyalties (nuisance creators). We sometimes wonder, “How much ‘30 pieces of silver’ can buy them nowadays”? They take but don’t give. Promise but don’t deliver. Like to talk but won’t listen. They come to the table to break bread and eat, but never offer to bring a stick of butter. They are sincerely selfish and self-interested. Be aware!

Trenton’s Current Generation’s Last Chance to Stand for Opportunity

Trenton is entering a period of slow, yet massive, change. We call it “slow-grind” gentrification. We’ll elaborate more in upcoming missives, but must now take a moment – an interlude – to address a critical issue. The issue of gangs, violent crime, un- and underemployment, poverty, and neighborhood blight are screaming at us every day in the major print and electronic media. Ironically, hurricanes Katrina and Rita have done more to highlight and expose the race, class, and social divide than any other events in recent memory.

If you actually read the newspapers (and our emails) you should be well aware of the changes taking place in Trenton’s economic, cultural, and social fabric. Neighborhood Revitalization Tax Credits, PILOT and Urban Enterprise Zone tax and job-creation subsidies, and a myriad of state, county, and municipal hard-structure driven investment incentives are the means by which properties (land, buildings, lots, and streetscapes) are being devoured by outsiders, at the expense of original and current residents and businesses. You may not detect an immediate gentrifying effect, but – believe thou us – it is happening. The nature of these particular subsidies and transfer of development rights require that most developable land, housing, and office and retail spaces are “tied up” for the next 15 – 30 years - minimum!

What this means is that anyone who does not take advantage of the opportunity – NOW – will not likely have another opportunity in his or her lifetime. This is why some us have been so strident in our attempt to inform and instruct the community about Building Open Opportunity Structures. We have to put ourselves in position to pursue, negotiate, secure and implement real and substantial benefits for individuals and families who have traditionally been marginalized and disenfranchised. If we don’t act now – in a collective manner – we may as well stop the whining and complaining about what “others” are doing and getting. This is a most serious moral and economic imperative on our part.

The Window of Opportunity Opens, then Closes, Rapidly – Oftentimes

The candy store is now closed. We will break bread, dine, and share only with those who reciprocate. We have carefully crafted this missive to stimulate positive response from the sincere while, at the same time, enabling ourselves to hear the “grunts and moans of the ‘hit dogs’” – the sharks that thought we were such small fish for the swallowing.

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“Individual initiative, intelligence, experience, and all the elements of human capital are obviously important. But understanding the opportunity structure in the US today requires complementing what we know about individual characteristics with what we are learning about place. Privilege cannot be understood outside the context of place.”

Gregory D. Squires (Chair) and Charis E. Kubrin are in the Department of Sociology, George Washington University, Phillips Hall – Washington, D.C.

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Clarity Matters – Part 1
“A Resumption of Analysis”

Questions & Answers:

Tim Razzaq – October 20, 2005

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Q. Why haven’t municipalities and developers taken these measures in the past? Shouldn’t impact mitigation be a major and ”equal” part of all new developments?

A. That’s a simple question, but the answer is not as simple. To find out the answer, it is imperative that the affected community and concerned others address – or in some way communicate – these concerns to both the governing municipality and the incoming or current developer. We will provide our answer to this question under separate cover – once the empirical evidence have been collected, analyzed, and synthesized. Great question though!
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Throughout the past few months, we have been addressing the issues of development and redevelopment from a community-first point of view. The questions that have been put to us – thus far - are:

Q. What is community-first?

A. What we mean by community-first is that the original and current residents, business and
property owners, neighborhood and community organizations, and local leadership should
have an opportunity to be directly involved in researching, planning, and shaping the scope
and content of new development – particularly when the new development is going to have
broad and potentially negative impacts on the targeted neighborhood and community.

Q. Why do you continually make an explicit distinction between neighborhood and
community in your commentary?

A. Firstly, according to most lexicographers, neighborhood is synonymous with: locality, district, and vicinity – but not synonymous with community. Secondly, the root of the term, community, is “commune”, which means to confer, consult, advise, parley, treat, or negotiate. These are things that “people” and groups of people do. Localities, districts, and vicinities do not commune. The people and groups of people that occupy these areas/neighborhoods do the communing or communicating. More importantly, in regards to development and redevelopment issues, we feel as though the people and groups of people that occupy the particular area, locality, district, and vicinity should have primary input into shaping the scope of new development because the original and current occupants of the targeted neighborhood best know the issues and challenges that should be addressed by development. Although there
are several more important reasons to make this distinction, for sake of clarity, this one is most substantial. It represents the essence of “community-first.”

Q. Why should communities be aware and play and active role in lessening the “potentially negative impacts” that a new development could have? We thought that that was “government’s” role.

A. In regards to the potentially negative impacts of new developments, we know that there are broad areas of concern that have to be considered, studied, analyzed and addressed before definitive statements of impact can be given substantive remedy. Also, the larger the size and scope of the proposed development the broader the range of impacts will be. We have come to understand the that municipalities or governing bodies that have a sworn duty to
adequately oversee and monitor these developments are oftentimes “cash-strapped” and
cannot afford to do the appropriate planning and studying, not only of the potential impacts,
but – most importantly – ensuring that mitigating measures are put into place. This being the case, the affected community should step up to the plate and play a more central role in the development’s planning and approval process and press both the municipality and the developer to ensure that community impact management and “softening” mechanisms are built into the proposals and final plans.

What this means is that resources need to be identified, procured, and allocated to those people and groups of people who are going to take on the important responsibility of impact identification, mitigation, and remediation. This investment will help to balance the development and ensure sustainability. This process, in fact, is the true meaning of “equitable development”, in spite of the pervasive misuse of the term by both the “dumb-growth” proponents and the simply uninformed.

Q. Why haven’t municipalities and developers taken these measures in the past? Shouldn’t impact mitigation be a major and equal part of all new developments?

A. That’s simple a question, but the answer is not as simple. To find out the answer, it is imperative that the affected community and concerned others address – or in some way communicate – these concerns to both the governing municipality and the incoming or current developer. We will provide our answer to this question under separate cover – once the empirical evidence have been collected, analyzed, and synthesized. Great question though!

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Q. What have been or are the major hurdles to community-first development?

A. Although the empirical evidence is still being gathered (literally in real-time), three (3) noticeable trends have been detected:

1) The “powers-that-be” – perhaps inherently – resist change. The agencies, organizations, and individuals who have traditionally profited (financially and socially) from development and revitalization have the tendency to want to preserve “business as usual” or the “status quo.” They are, or have become, paternalistic in nature and will do whatever it takes to preserve their “privileged” position. They go so far as to even blame the poor, un- and underemployed, disenfranchised, and marginalized populations for their own impotence in addressing the pressing issues and challenges with confront them. This tendency lends itself to a “blaming-the-victim”-type of attitude and behavior that, in turn, recycles the bad policies and practices of the original players (the traditional decision-makers and profiteers.)

2) On the other side, you have the original and current occupants of the neighborhood that is the target of revitalization who are either unwilling or lack the confidence to reach out beyond their traditional stewards for advice and counsel on how to address the chronic chllenges that confront them. These individuals and groups of individuals are apathetic, easily dissuaded and discouraged, or outright fearful of the consequences of “failed” effort. In this regard, they continue the cycle of reliance on the “status quo” leadership and, in turn, contribute to the preservation of the negative social and economic conditions that they are so accustomed to. They behave as though reading and studying are illegal.

3) A third noticeable factor that serves as a hurdle to equitable and community-first development is those individuals and groups and individuals who take a “wait and see” approach - they sit on the “social sidelines” and are content in accepting a spectator position on issues, decisions, and developments that will affect them. This is the reality, but the empirical evidence as to why is still in the process of being acquired on this class.

Related links

• The Need for Empowered OTN Coalition
• Community Benefits Handbook
• Anti-Displacement Strategies Handbook
• Knowledge And Power
• Brookings Institute Affordability Index
• Why the Old Trenton Neighborhood Coalition is Necessary