Speaker after speaker highlighted the fault lines of race, class, and geography that make metropolitan cooperation difficult, and bemoaned the lack of federal support for area-wide collaboration. Nonetheless, the tone of the colloquium was optimistic, looking back at what has been accomplished in recent decades and looking forward to new possibilities. Speakers appealed to visions of a better society, but built their plans on pragmatic politics. When people see how these issues are affecting them in their pocketbook, Mayor William Johnson of Rochester commented, that s when they get very civic-minded. A multi-university roundtable series will take place this Spring 2001 beginning February 13, led by Dara O Rourke and William Shutkin, faculty from MIT, and Charles Foster and Archon Fund, faculty from Harvard, to explore central questions raised by these developments.
Space is limited.
Based in Washington D.C., the NARC advances the work of regional partnerships and initiatives that improve the quality of life in regional communities. Grigsby was one of five panelists from UCLA and the community who briefed the California Legislative Black Caucus and Los Angeles community leaders last fall on economic development in impoverished districts . Grigsby called for implementing a series of policies that would bring the entire region together. Grigsby also suggested strengthening neighborhood business districts, constructing affordable housing along transit nodes throughout the region, supporting community development corporations, and regionalizing community development. Elected leaders also held a session on reapportionment issues within the context of newly released 2000 Census data.