Healthy Neighborhoods Make a Better Community
Judge Raymond L. Pianka
Housing Division, Cleveland Municipal Court
The Healthy Neighborhood Strategy is at work in neighborhoods across the country. Recently David Boehlke, from the CZB Company which is a Virginia based Urban Planning and Neighborhood Consulting Firm specializing in Neighborhood Revitalization strategies was in Cleveland looking at six neighborhoods hoping to strengthen and improve them.
The Healthy Neighborhood principles are already at work in the Detroit Shoreway Weed & Seed area. In healthy neighborhoods “residents are motivated to become directly involved in strengthening and promoting the positive aspects of their neighborhoods”. In the Weed & Seed area, residents are improving their neighborhood through the code enforcement partnership, neighborhood clean ups and working with the police on crime watch activities in the neighborhood.
Each home is a billboard for the image of the neighborhood. There are many positive messages on every street. The negative messages must be weeded out. Graffiti is a sign of chaos in any neighborhood and must be removed.
Garbage in alleys must be removed and if it is not removed, it sends a negative message about the community. Look at the alley at West 80th & Elton Court. It is clean and well maintained. It sends a positive message that the community cares. What a great picture it gives to the community!
Weed & Seed strategies seek small scale improvements that engage the new and existing neighbors in neighborhood pride projects. Neighbors in the Weed & Seed area are involved in projects that are visual clues that reflect that the neighborhood is a valued place. The message is hard to miss.
Sometimes, absentee investor owners and even some owner occupants can pull the neighborhood and community standards down. Bill Adler Jr., the author of the book “Outwitting the Neighbors” has suggestions for neighbors who don’t cut their grass, repair their homes, or may have tenants from hell. There is a solution to every problem.
References:
Great Neighborhoods, Great City by David BoehlkeOutwitting the Neighbors by Bill Adler Jr.
