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"Neighborhoods that are without older people are neighborhoods without souls," observed Dominic Pacyga, a professor at Columbia College in Chicago and a leading authority on neighborhood change in the Windy City. He continued, "They are neighborhoods without a sense of the past. Older people are bridges between the past and the future." Pacyga was describing current efforts to revitalize neighborhoods ravaged by decades of urban renewal and "white flight" to the suburbs, which segregated communities not only by race, but also by age, as elders were left behind in the inner city.
OPPORTUNITIES
He and ABCD Institute cofounder John L. McKnight jointly authored Building Communities From the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community's Assets (Evanston: Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University, 1993) after studying 3,000 cases of successful community-building in 25 cities. Instead of only diagnosing failures, which are usually the object of urban research, "we were looking, often in tough situations, for the most talented and successful community-building stories and leaders that we could find. We asked them not what's broken here but what's working here." The researchers asked such questions as, What did you use? What were the resources that you used to help this successful thing happen in your community?
A primary question ABCD surveyors ask people of all ages is what they can bring to their community. He added, "When we ask them about the three things they do best, elders see it as an invitation to be reactivated as definers of their own community contributions, as contributors to revitalizing community," he said. One success story he shared occurred in a tense Seattle neighborhood, which had a middle school across the street from a public housing building for elders. "The kids basically ignored the seniors, and the seniors were basically afraid of the young people," Kretzmann said. Community interviews revealed that the young people were interested in history and the older adults wanted to know more about computers. Exchanges between students and elders began one-on-one and then continued in groups, he reported. Eventually, the older residents were such a constant presence that the school designated a classroom as "a sort of senior center." Then the elders renamed the day room at their building the Intergenerational Room. Each day, students stay with the elders until their parents return from work. Foot traffic across the street increased so much that the city had to be pushed to put in a stoplight to ensure safety, Kretzmann said. Kretzmann also urged helping professionals to reach beyond their traditional role, which "tends to be narrowly clinical. They often see elders as cases. They list the obstacles, challenges and problems they face," he said. "This approach comes from a partial understanding of the professional's role. It is also important to understand a person's knowledge, wisdom and capacity." He said that professionals working with older people "should have a list in mind of choirs, softball teams, a range of community groups eager for a contribution to be made."
ALIVE WITH SENIORS
Walker emphasized that once the department representatives were seated around a table, "The first thing we did was decide to put together a set of moral imperatives." These imperatives included changing negative perceptions and images of aging Chicagoans; providing elders a return on the investments they have made over the years to their family, friends and communities; agreeing to accept collective responsibility as the city's government to deliver programs that promote elders as "active partners in any work we undertake on their behalf"; and taking responsibility "at the highest levels of leadership to pay attention to and address the issues of Chicago seniors."
PORCHES AND BACK FENCES
He called on professionals and urban planners to consider the very design of neighborhoods. For example, he asked the conference audience to think of "how important front porches are." He went on, "We stopped building front porches in this country 30 years ago. We're starting to bring them back. Front porches make neighborhoods safe." For example, he said, even more effective than putting more police on community beats is having elderly women who have known their neighbors for generations sit on a front pouch saying, "Hey Jimmie, I saw you do that and I'm going to tell your mother. I'm going to sit here until you behave yourself, and if you don't then you're in bigger trouble with me.'" He added, "The police are important, but they can't be the eyes and ears of the neighborhood." Pacyga continued, "The very texture of a neighborhood, the very placement of housing and keeping people in those houses as long as possible can create a sense of community. Things like the front porch are important, and so is the backyard, talking over the fence. You want community? Put a few people out there planting flowers and hanging clothes to dry. Creating a community that is talking--that's very, very important, especially in a city that's been mauled by urban renewal." For information about the ABCD Institute, its books and series of workbooks for asset-based community development, visit the institute's website.
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