Connected Communities and Purpose-Built Communities

 One of the initiatives begun by RMAPI is a project they call connected communities. It is a project to revitalize the Beechwood and EMMA neighborhoods of the City of Rochester "utilizing the proven principles of the Purpose-Built Communities framework" These principles include" the need for mixed-income housing, cradle-to-career education, community health and wellness, and long-term economic development, and ultimately reduce poverty."  The principles stated on the Connected Communities Web Site are identical with those of Purpose Driven Communities As with the collective impact model I think the evidence for these "proven principles" is limited and at best ambiguous. Moreover, it represents principles driven by foundations with a corporate agenda not necessarily in the best interests of the community and especially the poor.

 We should look beyond the fancy marketing and rhetoric and take a closer look at what the Purpose-Built Community framework is and what is the main source of its claims to success.

Purpose Built Communities is a foundation concerned with Urban redevelopment originally started by well-known financial magnate Warren Buffet. hedge fund manager Julian Robertson and real estate magnate Tom Cousins. Its aim is to replicate the so-called success of the East Lake project started by Cousins. It might give the reader pause to reflect on whether a foundation started by these men who have made so much of the financial sectors necessarily has the interests of the poor in mind. 

The East Lake project which is the underpinning of the claims involved a transformation of the East Lake neighborhood in Atlanta by Cousins twenty years ago.  In the 1990's it was one of the worst neighborhoods in the area with high crime poverty and a rundown public housing project. Cousins came in and bought the golf course in the neighborhood and put a lot of his own money into the project. 

Under Cousins direction the housing project was replaced by mixed income housing. Not all residents of the older housing were allowed back. There were strict requirements on the new housing. Felons for example were excluded. As a result 75% of the residents of the project left the area. Local public schools were replaced by Charter Schools, but here too students were cherry picked. The best ones attended the charter schools while the rest ended up in depleted public schools. Cousins also used pressure to get members of his new exclusive iteration of the golf club to give donations to the foundation he set up.

 Cousins initiatives had some success, crime went down considerably, and educational results seemingly improved, but at what cost. His plan did not revitalize the neighborhood as much as inducing a forced gentrification and resettlement program which improved the makers of the neighborhood through gentrification. 

A study led by Georgia State University Sociologist Deidre Oakley concluded that despite some marginal improvements, possibly caused by a soft rental market there, was no real change in the situation of those displaced by the East Lake project. She notes that that, at least statistically, the communities in which those homes are located are only marginally better than the old AHA projects: They still have high rates of violent crime, are overwhelmingly poor and are racially segregated. Instead of doing away with pockets of poverty, GSU's study indicates that the elimination of the housing projects simply caused most of those pockets to reform elsewhere. Pockets of poverty were simply displaced. Thus, the evidence of success that purpose built proponents cite is somewhat shaky, More recently Oakley I cited s in another article detailing the decrease in affordable housing in the Atlanta area, This will put more pressure on the displaced poor.

 Purpose Built community initiatives have not always been welcome with the alacrity shown in Rochester. A 2012 initiative proposed in Chattanooga brought widespread criticism from residents who objected to forced resettlement when housing projects would be torn down. There was little consultation with the community and little sense of how they viewed their own problems according to these critics.