Most of the strife centers around the firing of RP&L General Manager Steve Saum; the short version is that the Board of Directors unexpectedly removed Saum from his position after a negative performance review, and Saum along with others are concerned that he wasn’t given due process.  After the story hit the media, there’s been additional concern about the way the RP&L Board has (or has not) communicated the reasoning behind their decision and what it means for the future of the utility.  There’s a story in today’s Palladium-Item with some new revelations about the proceedings.

Few are in any good position to pass judgment on these matters.  In my limited interactions with Steve Saum I’ve always found him to be a person of good intent and competence in his leadership.  I also know most of members of the RP&L Board well enough to say they are people of good intent and great care for the future of RP&L and the City.  (Full disclosure: I ran unsuccessfully for election to the RP&L Board last year.)  And no matter what you think of any of their actions or decisions, it’s just a painful and messy thing when matters of someone’s employment and livelihood (or managerial methods) become a topic of public conversation.

But even with the limited facts available about this series of events, it seems there are some missed opportunities to reflect on moving forward:

First, if an employer thinks an employee is performing poorly, the annual performance review is not when they should find out about it. That this apparently happened in this case is the sign of a broken review process.  If indeed Mr. Saum had gone from performing “commendably” as his last review indicated to “unsatisfactory” and not serving the needs of RP&L, or even if he was just rubbing members of the RP&L Board the wrong way, as his supervisors they had an ongoing responsibility to communicate that clearly at the first sign of a problem that might even remotely lead to his termination. “Here’s our concern, here’s why this is a problem, here’s what we want you to do about it, here’s when we’ll check in again.”  If the board members were getting employee calls about Mr. Saum’s managerial decisions, they had a responsibility to include him in a constructive conversation about how to address those employee concerns well before they were used as evidence of his own poor performance.   Yes, there are some kinds of incompetence or insubordination that might necessitate fast, decisive action, but there’s been no indication by any of the RP&L Board members that Mr. Saum’s failings were so serious as to immediately endanger the future of the utility.

Second, in any given employment conversation, if the boss or supervisor is an elected official, the rules of the game change.  The same is true if the employee is in a leadership position of some prominence or public scrutiny, such as the head of a public utility.  Put those two together in the context of any kind of disagreement, and you have a recipe for an uncomfortable situation at the very best.  We should wonder whether it makes sense for elected members of the RP&L Board to be conducting performance reviews of the RP&L GM.  Are they in the best position to know how well the GM has performed?  Is there too much of a power imbalance for it to be a collegial, respectful conversation when disagreement occurs?  Or will the pressures of public scrutiny always mean that these review conversations are a power struggle instead of an opportunity for true professional development?

Third, an employer has a unique burden to bear if they’re going to give someone a negative performance review without firing them on the spot.  If you’ve just told someone they aren’t doing well enough at their job and then asked them to get back to work, this can put them in a pretty difficult position for figuring out what to do next.  It’s important to provide some clear next steps, especially when what happens next affects a lot of other employees, not to mention RP&L’s in-progress projects and customers.  That someone is frustrated about a negative performance review is not in itself a cause for their termination.  That they ask hard questions about the processes and information used to create that review is not a cause for termination.  Of course someone is going to be defensive if you’ve just told them they suck at their job. Of course someone might want to take some drastic actions to try to get on a more solid footing.  But if a supervisor and employee can’t have an honest  and open – even if tense – conversation about their different perspectives on how that employee is performing with a focus on how best to move forward, then the review process itself is probably a waste of time.

Why does any of this really matter to the rest of us?  Isn’t this just between RP&L and Steve Saum?

If there was some sense that this was an exceptional case of miscommunication or poor HR practices, I might not bother to blog about it.  But I hear too many stories in our community of employers and employees missing opportunities for more humane and constructive conversations around areas of conflict or disagreement.  The Really Cool Foods closing in November represents some of the worst of this: having employees show up to work only to be blocked at the gate as their employer announces going out of business that day.

The RP&L Board’s treatment of Mr. Saum is different, but no less a setback in any efforts to find a model of “doing business” that honors complexity of differing interests and needs, human dignity and effective conflict resolution. I don’t claim to be any expert at this, and as an employer myself who’s had to struggle with these issues, I know I still have much to learn.  As with every such case, it seems worthwhile to try to learn some lessons that will help us know how to do it better the next time around.

In the meantime, let us hope for some kind of clarity and closure for Mr. Saum and for members of the RP&L Board.

I won’t be able to attend, but as an employer of some younger professionals who gets to hear some of their concerns and struggles “engaging” in life in Richmond, and as someone who has spent my own young professional life in Richmond, I want to offer a few initial ideas about how to help connect and mobilize that demographic.  (This is in addition to the ideas already being submitted and discussed at RichmondBrainstorm.com.)  My hope is that others will add to the list over time:

1. Expand the traditional definition of a young professional.
   Sometimes efforts to engage young professionals are focused on people who work in offices and stare at computers or paperwork all day (e.g. people like me).  What about professional artists, professional carpenters, professional mechanics – how can we engage them too?  I think that by including others with different backgrounds, skills and experiences of the professional world, we bring diversity and creativity that will benefit the larger goals of a YP group.
2. Don’t tie community involvement to the ability to the attend specific events.
   Some young professionals have time to attend networking events, outings, and community service days, but some don’t.  In addition to scheduling specific events, create flexible opportunities for engagement that can be done at any time of the day.
3. Welcome newly interested YPs in a special way.
   It can be intimidating for someone to show up at “the monthly young professionals event” if you’re not sure what to expect, who you’ll know, etc.  When someone expresses interest in getting involved, issue a personal invitation to them and a few others for a smaller gathering – lunch, coffee, drinks – and get to know their interests and background.  Then it will be much easier to introduce them to other YPs who they can connect with, and will make their experience of their first larger gathering more personal.
4. Promote “unknown” YPs to serve on community boards.
   Often the boards of directors for local organizations are interested in incorporating perspectives of YPs, but are only really aware of YPs who have made a name for themselves by being well-connected, long-time residents or unusually active.  This is the safe approach, but what about asking relatively “unknown” YPs to join boards or at least serve on committees, so that organizations are benefiting from fresh perspectives and new skill sets in addition to folks who are already a core part of the community?
5. Create social gatherings that don’t require everyone to be “on.”
   Young professionals may be good at networking, but that doesn’t mean they want to be in professional networking mode all the time.  Opportunities to visit with other YPs and build some shared social/cultural experiences (watching the game, bowling, hiking, canoeing, visiting the museum, etc.) without the pressure of presenting your best professional self can sometimes yield more meaningful and engaging encounters than events designed around traditional professional contact.
6. Let advocacy and involvement be initiated by YPs, not organizations who want to benefit from YPs.
   Once there’s a critical mass of young professionals engaged and getting together, organizations around town will start to notice and say to themselves, “hey, we should include The YP Group on X” or “we should ask The YPs to help us with Y.”  Saying yes to this can be good, but it means that the issues and activities YPs engage in are driven externally instead of internally.  Poll the YP group regularly to see what kinds of issues and activities they want to participate in and spend time on, and then make contact with organizations that could help make that happen.
7. Promote dense population centers with walkable, bike-able opportunities for entertainment.
   Cities with thriving YP populations tend to have thriving cultural centers too, where someone can either live in the heart of it or easily make their way there, surrounding themselves with other people and plenty of opportunities to wander in and out of retail stores, restaurants and entertainment venues.  By discouraging sprawl while focusing on the Center City and Depot District areas for residential and commercial use alike, we have a better chance of creating areas where YPs can feel at home.

Those are some of my ideas for helping young professionals engage in Richmond, Indiana.  What’s on your list?

Today, I’m happy to publicly invite others in Richmond and Wayne County to join in this effort to raise the level of public discourse in our area.  Whether it’s commentary on the local arts scene, restaurant reviews, political news analysis, your experiences with religion and spirituality, technology tools, sustainability tips or perspectives on education, we welcome contributions from those who feel they can provide a local connection and provoke conversation that might help move the community forward in some form.

What’s more, you can make a little money while you do it.  We want to encourage compelling writing while valuing the time of our contributors, and so we’re also offering a small amount of compensation as an incentive, currently US$20 for each contribution accepted for publication on the site.

You can learn more about what it means to become a contributor to ProgressiveWayneCounty.org, and I hope you’ll help spread the word about this opportunity to encourage new kinds of dialog in our community.

The board is a volunteer group of community members who meet regularly with the paper’s editorial staff to discuss issues facing our area, and to help ensure that the viewpoints expressed by the paper are the result of careful consideration and broad consultation.  In the end, it’s the Palladium-Item staff (and not the advisory board members) who craft the resulting columns, but Dale McConnaughay and others responsible for that task rely on the input received (and strong disagreements aired) through the board’s private conversations.  They also regularly invite community leaders to meet with the board for updates and discussion about projects underway.

This is a bit of an odd pairing, to be sure.  In the past I’ve not been shy in this space about pointing out some of the ways in which I think the paper could improve in its journalistic role in Richmond, and sometimes I’ve just plain disagreed with their editorial positions or the framing of their news stories.  I’m sure that there will be editorials written while I’m a board member that don’t represent my personal views.

But I’ve also found that the Palladium-Item and its staff have not only been willing to fully engage the constructive criticism it receives from me and others, they remain one of the most central spaces in our community for the exchange of information, ideas and conversation about the place we live.  One of my personal goals is to help raise the quality of public discourse in Richmond, Indiana, and so I’m honored by this invitation and look forward to serving.

Whether it is the 2009 Christmas Eve Senate passage of a huge, and hugely controversial, health care reform measure by Democrats narrowly controlling the U.S. Senate or, closer to home, Republicans and Democrats waiting until after a general election to craft their respective political handiwork, this is the stuff that alienates and isolates the public from those who have sworn to represent their best interests.

Through any such conversation we must of course be sensitive to Mr. Welch’s experience along the way.  I certainly wish him the best in recovering his health, and appreciate the years of time and service he has given to the Richmond community and the residents of District 5.  It’s not easy to be a political figure in the public spotlight even when you’re healthy, and so we know that it must have been particularly hard on Bing and his family to have health concerns and questions about his ability to serve in that role all mixed in together.

But when someone is elected to represent the interests of voters, their own story is not the only story that needs considering.  Calls for privacy and sensitivity are legitimate to an extent, but I think elected officials at any level should be held to a higher standard than private citizens when life events affect their ability to do their job.  When a health issue actually prevents someone from doing the job at all, or from making the case to voters that they should be re-elected, that’s when the interests of their constituents are most vulnerable, and the most in need of the protection that comes from extreme candor and accountability.

My perspective on this is hardly objective – I campaigned for most of a year for a seat on Council and now someone else will be selected after campaigning for part of an evening.  But one of the mantras repeated by candidates in all parties during the recent campaign was that in order to move Richmond forward, we have to be willing to have hard conversations about sensitive topics without taking it personally.   Talking about what’s best for the voters of District 5 and for City Council is one of those conversations, and those who would suggest that we shouldn’t go there because it might hurt the feelings of the Welch family, or who say that a thirst for information should be satisfied by just trusting that the right thing was done, are missing the point.

Make no mistake, no one is suggesting that any laws were broken or that the local Republican party isn’t well within its rights to caucus and appoint a new District 5 representative until the next election.  You could make an argument about what might be more ethical or “fair” to voters, but in this case and many others, “fair” doesn’t necessarily line up with what’s “legal” according to Indiana law or what’s strategic for a political party.  Like it or not, we have to respect that until the law is changed.

But the point the Pal-Item editorial makes (and that I agree with) is that if we want members of our community to feel like their voices matter in the course of electing and working with government leadership, then we must have a higher standard of transparency and communication on the part of those leaders.  If the motivating vision for would-be leaders in a political context is “win a victory at any cost” instead of “do the right thing for the community,” then we’re not going to make it very far as a city.

We don’t know what really happened behind the scenes with Mr. Welch’s health and subsequent decisions by his party about how to handle his seat on Council; their choice was to share as little information as possible, and only when repeatedly asked to do so.  In the absence of the information that should have been forthcoming, we’re left with the appearance that Bing Welch’s health issues were exploited for political gain, and there’s no forward motion for Richmond that comes from that.

Even if Eddington’s role as Executive Director of the organization isn’t as dramatic as you’d find in a legal thriller, the need for reduced rate or free legal services in our area has never been greater, and the prospects for funding sources to meet those needs are changing rapidly.

In the past, pro bono legal services in Indiana (including the District 9 office that serves Wayne County) were funded largely through the Interest on Lawyer Trust Accounts (IOLTA)  program run by the Indiana Supreme Court and the Indiana Bar Foundation.  Basically, lawyers around the state would pool together their deposits from paying clients in a shared bank account that would accumulate interest, and that interest income would be used to cover expenses for pro bono work.  You may have heard that the global economy hasn’t been doing so well in the last few years, and when your bank account interest rate is approximately zero, it’s hard to earn much money on it.  Pro bono offices around the state found out recently that IOLTA funding would cease at the end of 2011, leaving them to revert to the State’s plan for filling in pro bono service coverage: one part time person trying to handle all of the cases across many counties.

“We can do better,” Eddington told me.  The Whitewater Valley Pro Bono Commission, a 501(c)3 non-profit, has decided to try to meet the legal needs of low-income community members in Wayne County through the support of donations and the time and efforts of their legal team and board.  If you’re at 125% of the Federal Poverty Level ($13,612 gross yearly income for a single person), the Commissions’s services will likely be at no cost to you.  If you’re at 200% of that level, your out of pocket expenses are capped at a reasonable amount.  The process starts with a fairly simple application form available at their 712 E Main Street location in Richmond.

The Commission is having a luncheon tomorrow, Thursday December 15th, to share more information about their work and to raise some funds.  They also recently received a grant from the Wayne County Foundation to help keep operations going as they seek out longer term sources of income.  You can contact them at (765) 935-5053 for more information.

I would certainly rather live in a world where access to legal advice that might make a significant difference in someone’s ability to live a happier life (or, more pressingly, keep their home or fight abuse) doesn’t depend on their own personal wealth.  While the court system provides public defenders for someone caught up in a criminal case, there’s no such protection in civil cases, but the stakes can sometimes be just as high. The reality is that people do find themselves in situations beyond their personal control, and sometimes good legal counsel does make all the difference.

I hope we can explore sustainable, long-term solutions for meeting these community needs that don’t depend on fundraising.  But for now, I’m grateful that the Whitewater Valley Pro Bono group is working to meet this need in our community today, and I hope they continue to receive support along the way.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that I’m on the board of the Wayne County Foundation which recently awarded a grant to the Commission, and I’m part of an LLC that rents out the office space the Commission uses.)

The New York Times

According to The New York Times website, home delivery of their Sunday edition is available where I live in Richmond, Indiana.  Earlier this year I tried to take them up on that, buying a subscription online and eagerly awaiting that first Sunday morning when I would get to indulge in a paper-reading experience long enough to get me through at least one cup of coffee.

But that first Sunday, the paper didn’t show up.  ”Oh, yeah, that’s probably just some issue getting you in the circulation system,” the phone rep said when I called.  ”We’ll get it to you next week.”

Week two, no paper.  ”Sorry about that, don’t know what happened there.  Hold on while I call the distribution center.”  They concluded it was just another circulation issue, and assured me it had been straightened out for sure this time.

Week three, no paper, and the phone rep was equally apologetic, but had no additional routes to pursue.  ”Let me make sure I understand,” I said, “you theoretically offer home delivery in my area, but in my case, there’s nothing you can do to make that actually happen?”  The best she could do was offer to put a manager on the phone, but then when she tried to do that, she said all the managers were busy at the moment, and so one would have to call me back.

I cancelled my ethereal subscription and abandoned all hope of that particular luxury for now. But it seems worth noting that with newspapers fretting day in and day out about attracting and retaining readers, the least that one like the New York Times could do is coordinate their circulation operations to put a paper in the hands of people ready and willing to pay for it. If that part of the business model is falling apart, I think that puts them somewhere between “not likely to prosper” and “doomed.”

I don’t take any pleasure in making that assessment.  Apart from still longing for a leisurely Sunday morning paper-in-hand experience, I long for a time when the hard work that goes into high quality journalism is again appreciated and valued enough that papers like The New York Times and even my local Palladium-Item can again be a centerpiece of public discussion.

It was fascinating to watch the film Page One, which documents a few days in the life of The New York Times and its staff as they talk to sources, discuss angles on stories, bid goodbye to laid off co-workers and consider the future of their industry.

The film is part love letter to what The Times has been, part behind-the-scenes chronicling of how the paper is made, and part rumination on the possibilities for what will become of the newspaper in the age of the Internet.  It’s narrated by NYT reporter David Carr, who is fiercely protective of the paper’s reputation and role in society, and Page One doesn’t apologize for portraying The New York Times in an overall favorable light.   The few times when its fumbles and failures (Judith Miller’s Iraq WMD reporting, the Jason Blair scandal, etc.) come up, they’re quickly swept into the bigger picture of how all the good it does outweighs those unfortunate course corrections.  But even with that bias, it’s a great  look at the roller-coaster ride of producing a modern print newspaper.

The Palladium-Item

In April of 2010 I took the time to post here about why I was canceling my print subscription to The Palladium-Item, Richmond’s daily newspaper, and so it’s only fair that I take some time to note that I re-subscribed early this year and have continued my subscription since.  A few things happened to prompt that:

The first was that I was running for local political office for much of 2011, and it felt important to see the print edition of the paper as everyone else would see it – the prominence and layout of news articles, the placement of photographs, the political ads (mine included) sprinkled throughout.  This was quite useful, and a number of times it meant that I could see how the political coverage was coming together in ways the online version of the paper didn’t necessarily show.  (As I’ve said elsewhere, I also think the Palladium-Item did an outstanding job covering this election, devoting significant amounts of their already strained resources to provide voters with unprecedented levels of information about candidates…that alone feels worth having supported.)

Second, Kelly noted one day that when she only reads the paper online, there’s much less of a sense of knowing what’s going on in the community.  This is ironic given that there’s probably more information about community events and happenings online than there ever can be in the print edition, but I agreed with her that the experience of serendipitously encountering an upcoming play, fundraiser or art show is much more intact while turning the pages of the paper than it is when browsing a website.  You have to do a lot of clicking and scrolling to find the same information online, and there’s still some value in the editorial and even pay-for-visibility processes that go into raising something to visual prominence within a finite amount of space.

(I should note, too, that there are times when some content from the print edition of the paper can’t be found online at all.  I saw this firsthand a few weeks ago when they were able to publish in printed column form my observations on the closing of Really Cool Foods, but because of some licensing issues, it couldn’t be redistributed online.  But the print edition readership is attentive – I had a lot of people coming up to me for days afterward to mention the column.)

Third, one of my reasons given for canceling my subscription last year was the relative chaos and toxicity of the public conversations happening on the paper’s website comment sections, and they’ve since addressed that to a large degree.  Just this fall, the paper switched to using Facebook for story comments, which requires commenters to use their real name (as governed by Facebook) while still leaving the option for anonymous users to share their views elsewhere on the website.  Yes, there are plenty of privacy concerns that come with depending on Facebook for this function, but in this case I think the benefits outweigh those concerns.

Lastly, over the year I’ve just come to have a new appreciation for the role a daily newspaper plays in the life of the community, and the role that the Palladium-Item plays in the life of Richmond and Wayne County.  In the past I think I’ve blamed some of the lack of debate or civic engagement in our community on the paper’s own choices – what to cover, how to cover it, etc.  There’s no doubt that those choices make a difference, but I’ve also come to see that the choice not to be engaged in public life is unfortunately one that many members of this community make for themselves on a regular basis, and no amount of great reporting or special features are going to change that alone.

Further, if I imagine a day when the Pal-Item announces that it is closing its doors, I can only see Really Bad Things that stem from that when it comes to our community’s ability to address the challenges in front of it.  In the past I might have thought that citizen journalists or some of the other less formalized news-gathering efforts in town would step in, but my recent experience is that Richmond doesn’t nearly have the critical mass of people and platforms in place to really make that work.  So even with limited financial and personnel resources, even with an over-dependence on advertising, even with editorial or coverage choices I might disagree with, a functioning daily Palladium-Item is a much better thing for Richmond than no paper at all.

My concerns and suggestions from past critiques still stand; I still hope the paper (and the industry as a whole) is able to move toward a model that blends print and online editions more seamlessly, that allows me to pay money to see fewer advertisements, and that continues to provide unique value through a focus on in-depth local reporting and commentary.  I’m even looking for ways to personally contribute directly to that focus – more on that later.

But for now, I’ll continue supporting the existence of the Palladium-Item with my subscription dollars and appreciating it as a unique link to the place I live.

What’s your current relationship with your local paper?  And can you drop your copy of the Sunday Times off at my house when you’re done with it today?

As of today, the first two sets of bike racks are here!  Here’s the view on North side of the 700 block:

Thanks to the Urban Enterprise Association and Whitewater Construction for making this a reality.  Thanks to Mark Stosberg at Summersault for driving the process forward and presenting such specific, compelling plans and rationale for the racks.  Thanks to everyone who voiced your support for the racks or offered to contribute financially.  And thanks to everyone who carefully considers their choice of transportation and its impact on quality of life in our community and beyond.

Now, get downtown and park your bike here!

Most other communities have recognized the benefits of having bike parking in a central retail and business district like Richmond’s.  They’re good for business (when cyclists feel invited to shop downtown, they tend to spend even more money in a given area than car drivers do), they help prevent damage to benches, trees and lamp posts, they make for a more orderly-looking streetscape, they prevent theft, and they’re relatively cheap to buy and install.

Unfortunately, in all of the time that I’ve worked in downtown Richmond, there hasn’t been any convenient and consistently available bike parking available here.

If Richmond wants to be able to say that it’s a city looking forward, a city that wants to attract and retain the modern worker, a city that cares about issues of sustainability and energy usage, it absolutely needs to have bike racks in its central business district.

Hopefully the current dearth of bike parking is about to change.

For the last few years, we at Summersault (as coordinated by my coworker and local bikes-as-transportation advocate Mark Stosberg) have been asking the City of Richmond and related entities, “What can we do to get bike racks here?“

We’ve pointed out how the City’s own comprehensive planning supports the installation of bike racks, we’ve offered to pay for them (they’re only $65 each), we’ve gotten price quotes and offered to manage relationships with vendors, we’ve presented specific plans and recommendations for where they can go (which have been approved), and we’ve even offered to install them ourselves – hey, I’ve got a wheelbarrow to mix some concrete in.

As you can imagine, sometimes the decision-making processes and bureaucracy in these matters make for slow progress, but we’ve found that people are very receptive to the idea and want to make it happen. Now, it looks like the Urban Enterprise Association (UEA), which has taken up the mantle of getting the racks installed, is approaching the final steps in completing an initial installation.

If bike parking, and having alternative transportation options in general, is important to you, please let the UEA know that you support the installation of bike racks in Richmond’s center city.  You can contact UEA program director Beth Fields at (765) 983-7396 or by e-mail at bfields@richmondindiana.gov.

Hopefully I’ll be updating this post soon with news about the first racks getting installed!

The article does a good job of summarizing the challenges of blight as amplified by rough economic times: property owners who might already struggle with maintenance and upkeep are even more at risk of letting a given structure or piece of land fall into disrepair when finances get tight and layoffs and foreclosures are looming.  With such a high percentage of Richmond’s residences being rentals, there’s possibility for further disconnect between the state of the property and the owner’s involvement in it.

My impression from the article and from the conversations I’ve had with city leaders is that Richmond is generally doing what it can to respond to the impact of decaying properties.  But it can be discouraging to know that the process of getting a blighted property owner’s attention is often drawn out over a long time and a lot of paperwork, not to mention expenditure of taxpayer dollars: wait for the property to be reported as blighted, flag it, mow it or repair it and bill the property owner, wait for the bill to go unpaid, place a lein on the property, and THEN there MIGHT be a financial incentive for some action.  This routine may bear the customary government trademarks of caution and glacial due process, but it doesn’t recognize very well the shorter-term impacts (financial and social) of a property falling into disrepair, and the ripple effect it can have on other areas nearby.

That particular concern is probably better taken up by neighborhoods and communities of neighbors than by municipal government, though.  When a given area has a strong sense of community or neighborhood identity, perhaps through the work of an active neighborhood association, it’s harder for any one property or resident to get left behind.  When people know their neighbors and understand what personal and financial constraints are at work, there may be more opportunities to lend a hand and stop a bad situation from getting worse in a way that more deeply impacts the whole neighborhood.  When we have vibrant and accessible public spaces, including a healthy downtown and surrounding arts and cultural districts, we have more opportunities to pool together our shared investment in the health of the city.

Of course, blight is a symptom of some other troubling trends as much as it is a cause.  Richmond can check off many of Wikipedia’s list of sources of urban decay:

It may feature deindustrialization, depopulation or changing population, economic restructuring, abandoned buildings, high local unemployment, fragmented families, political disenfranchisement, crime, and a desolate, inhospitable city landscape…Urban decay has no single cause; it results from combinations of inter-related socio-economic conditions—including the city’s urban planning decisions, the poverty of the local populace, the construction of freeway roads and rail road lines that bypass the area, depopulation by suburbanization of peripheral lands, real estate neighborhood redlining, and xenophobic immigration restrictions.

As much as we should be working to address blight in Richmond, we need to also develop a holistic view of these underlying causes, and develop a long-term approach that not only focuses on revitalizing Richmond’s residential areas, but also on building a vibrant and self-reliant city as a whole.