Winning over naysayers
When critics disrupted efforts to revitalize a community, Virginia LISC worked to transform them into valued participants of the planning process.
11 Sep 2012 - Elizabeth Duffrin
Excerpt:
Any plan to revitalize a community, no matter how well-intentioned, has the potential to attract critics. Some may be vocal enough to disrupt your whole effort.
That’s what happened in 2009 to Virginia LISC and its partners after they launched a comprehensive community development initiative in the Greater Fulton area of Richmond.
The launch coincided with a move by the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority that reignited a forty-year-old controversy over the destruction of the impoverished but historic African-American neighborhood of Fulton.
A group of former Fultonites, led by an outspoken and passionate man named Spencer Jones, continually raised objections to the planning process and monopolized meetings “speaking for the community in addressing all the anger, the pain and the injustice,” recalled Veronica Fleming, senior program officer with Virginia LISC.
In 2009, Richmond's housing authority had just sold land to a private developer to complete the final phase of redevelopment for Fulton, one of three neighborhoods in the Greater Fulton area. Continued[+]...
> Read the full Institute for Comprehensive Community Development article
> Visit the Virginia LISC website.
Article Type: News