The Observation Deck

Help me understand this one aspect of the discussion. If this is a city borne "mission", what role would they play in neighborhood identity or block parties? I certainly agree that it plays a factor but I'm curious if only like minded folks that attend sessions like this feel this way. If the city is going to come up with action items I would rather they spend their time and our money on things that only they can "fix".
Where I'm coming from on this is that the neighbors can do these things without city involvement, with the exception of maybe a permit to close a street. Those I talk to in the burbs seem to know many of their neighbors and one even sounds like she can't stand all the events that they plan for her. None of these things are being done by someone at their city hall. If City Hall's part in this is making it easier to establish a Block Watch or host a Block Party then I'm behind it 100%. If we're counting on "government" to provide us with a neighborhood identity then we deserve all the taxes that we're being charged.

Shawn:

Excellent post! You raise a number of critical questions about Lakewood.

I want to provide a two part contextual response, because we are talking about vision, relationships, government and city at a time when some sort of citizen engagement effort is underway.

What are the conditions for a government intervention on people who want to be left alone?

It may well be that the types and levels of participation may well reflect a socio-political snapshot of the city.

Hang on. Here I go.

“Update on City Visionâ€Â￾

Let me first report on the sense of confusion over mission and vision that was expressed at the session I attended on December 6th at the Beck Center.

While the agenda read “Update on City Vision,â€Â￾ there was at the outset a shifting reference between mission and vision in the facilitator’s opening remarks. Larry Faulhaber wanted “to know if we were talking mission or vision.â€Â￾

The facilitator, Dr. Jennifer Alexander, said vision.

Now, some might recall that Councilman Demro’s post noted the “Mission of the City.â€Â￾

Mission and vision are all elements of planning. The focus of our community meeting was vision.

I would not classify these sessions as full-blown long term planning sessions. The general sense may well be in a city without two extra nickels it’s not worth spending much time on elaborate planning exercises that turn up volumes of strategic initiatives to satisfy unmet needs.

So the point here seems more targeted to providing bearings on the immediate budget, on the sound and functional delivery of day to day operations we rely upon in of daily life.

An overview of the budget was provided by Finance Director Jennifer Pae.

These sessions may in fact have their roots in council budget hearings. According to Councilman Demro, the initiative emerges from the question “where are we goingâ€Â￾ raised not only by himself but by members Dunn, and Madigan.

So in speaking to my Councilman, I understand my experience of the "City of Lakewood Community Meetingâ€Â￾ could be linked to council budget hearings and the interests expressed by these members in obtaining perspective from a facilitated process.

It is my understanding from a conversation with Councilman Demro that $10,000 was budgeted for this facilitated experience.

An ad-hoc committee with Councilman Demro, Councilwomen Nickie Antonio and Mary Louise Madigan serving, was concerned with this matter.

I am not exactly certain how or why the facilitator was selected.

The facilitators conducted a retreat for department heads and council members who worked together to generate the ideas distributed at the “Update of City Visionâ€Â￾ meeting, which Steve Greenwell has already posted.

These were termed “Strategic Initiativesâ€Â￾ on the agenda distributed.

Citizens were asked to discuss and rank the “Strategic Initiatives.â€Â￾

These “Strategic Initiativesâ€Â￾ seemed to telescope quite of bit of function, material and perspective, a likely outcome of group work at the retreat.

Speaking personally, I did not find the “Strategic Initiativesâ€Â￾ very clear or particular statements. And indeed, there were numerous questions raised by people in my group about the meaning, management and financing of these “Strategic Initiatives.â€Â￾

The facilitator said to feel free in coming up with your own “Strategic Initiatives,â€Â￾ which my group did, with Steve Gross leading the way off the reservation with an annexation idea.

For the under fifty set in my group, who have only moved to the Wood within the past few years, the thrust was for innovation (and the disruption that follows in the wake of gain) rather than preservation. I think this may well be a generational turning point, and perhaps something more easily imagined by wash-ashores, like myself.

There were suggestions for 1) rezoning east end housing for business; 2) annexing to West 115th Street from Clifton to the Lake; 3) a police levy.

Eight or so people came out for this session. Better than the first session. Quite frankly, I thought I would have seen more people who I knew. Perhaps their influence has already been registered through the elected reps. Perhaps others figure, hey, that’s why we pay these guys. Keep it simple. Fix my street. Bust the perps. Pick up my trash. That way I don’t have any issue with vision. No strategic initiatives are required. Thank you very much.

Do Types of Neighborhoods and Relationships Bear on “Update on City Visionâ€Â￾

Is there any relationship between these “Strategic Initiatives,â€Â￾ the people who participate and those who do not, the qualities of relationship and degree of participation desired, and the types of neighborhoods in the Wood?

Urban psychologist Frank Mills, who has presented programs at Lakewood Public Library on neighborhoods, pulls together a neat adaptation from The neighborhood organizer's handbook (Warren, R. B. & Warren, D. J., Notre Dame Press, 1977).

He supplies six types of neighborhoods:

Integral
Parochial
Diffuse
Stepping Stone
Transitory
Anomic

(I wish I had the definitions handy, but I don’t.)

Where do you think Lakewood neighborhoods are on this scale?

Some may be tipping into anomic. Perhaps that might trigger a government sponsored intervention of some sort.

My sense is some of Lakewood’s parochial neighborhoods have been breaking down for some time. That’s why the population has dropped and the Catholic schools have closed and Lutheran churches have merged.

What is the level of relationship to others on your block, your neighborhood, your city, your region that you desire?

Frank explains: “Of the six, only the Integral and Parochial neighborhood types are relational. The Integral neighborhood has a high sense of neighborhood identity, internal interaction, and external linkages. The same is true for the Parochial neighborhood, with one exception. The Parochial neighborhood does not have a high sense of external linkages.â€Â￾


I know you have been very active with the Jaycees and reflective about the city. So I figured this material might be useful in your thinking and the meaning you make of your experience here.

More from Mills:

“As Crook points out in his essay, for a city to be relational, its residents must have relational linkages outside of the neighborhood. In other words, they must participate in both relational geographical and external neighborhoods, e.g., school, church, work, etc.

For Warren & Warren, the Integral neighborhood is:

Active and involved. Internally, many civic, religious, educational or other neighborhood organizations exist. Externally, these are linked with resources in other neighborhoods and the larger community. Residents share social ties and a sense of identity as a neighborhood, and like living there. There is a feeling of small-town friendliness, but also being an integral part of the city. When a problem occurs, residents mobilize and take action, with internal neighborhood or external resources, or both.

What distinguishes the Integral neighborhood from the Parochial besides the level of external linkages is that the Parochial neighborhood’s strong sense of identity and shared values is often based on ethnic or religious heritage. This raises at least two questions: First, how does the Parochial neighborhood hinder the development of the relational city, and secondly, the corollary question, how does the Parochial neighborhood become an Integral neighborhood without destroying it ethnic or religious identity and ties?

For Crook, the five elements, or "micro-level building blocks," necessary to create a Relational City, or for our purposes, a relational neighborhood out of which beneficial characteristics like mutual trust and co-operation can develop are:

• Face-to-face contact (Directness)

Residents physically meet with each other and mutually interact. In the process, they begin to understand and appreciate other perspectives expressed by neighbors. Simply put, relationships cannot exist if people do not come together.
• Common purpose (Commonality)

Residents share a joint vision, or at least some elements. If residents do not share a common purpose there will be no opportunity to profitably work together. Common purpose requires residents to be convinced that there are common projects on which they can co-operate to their mutual advantage.
• Contact over time (Continuity)

Relationships take time to develop. People are highly unlikely to form strong commitment to a neighborhood if they see their stay likely to be short.
• Contact in different contexts (Multiplexity)

Multiplexity is the idea that a relationship between two (or more) people is strengthened if it takes place in more than one context. In my neighborhood, for example, most of my neighbors attend the same church and we all walk to the same stores.
• Mutual respect (Parity)

Neighborhood residents are able to interact on roughly the same level with equal power. Neighbors meet on equal footing and contribute equally. When a particular neighbor chooses at times to remain aloof from the neighborhood a relational neighborhood will accept the neighbor back into the process as if he had never left.â€Â￾
Source: http://urbanparadoxes.blogspot.com/2006 ... rhood.html

I like what you said about your suburban friend who feels pressed and pressured by expectations for neighborhood relationship and participation.

That’s one reason people move to the city, for the freedom that comes from anonymity.

Kenneth Warren

Shawn Juris wrote:...Where I'm coming from on this is that the neighbors can do these things without city involvement, with the exception of maybe a permit to close a street.
...If we're counting on "government" to provide us with a neighborhood identity then we deserve all the taxes that we're being charged.

100% complete agreement.


.

Thanks for the info. I agree completely with the 5 elements. It's a tough sell to convince residents who are ready for action though that simply their attendance at meeting such as this are accomplishing something. It's interesting how the "action items" in community planning meetings can become a biproduct, second to the relationships that are created or further developed.

...Where I'm coming from on this is that the neighbors can do these things without city involvement, with the exception of maybe a permit to close a street.
...If we're counting on "government" to provide us with a neighborhood identity then we deserve all the taxes that we're being charged.

Encouraging block parties is not the City's or anybody's "plan", nor would it cost any tax dollars, nor should it. It was one of my brainstorm suggestions for how to emphasize a sharpened vision for Lakewood that can compete with Crocker Park, Avon, and the wharehouse district downtown.

It's a bully pulpit, cheerleading function of the mayor and other city leaders. Put out a press release, keep a running block party list that you celebrate with much (legitimate) delight in an e-newsletter, collect a "how-to" kit from veteran block party organizers on Andrews Ave. (for example), and keep *talking* about how Lakewood is a place where honest-to-goodness community actually exists. What Crocker Park makes out of Disney Astroturf, Lakewood has always had as the genuine article.

This *is* a big deal, for no cost, because it sharpens the Lakewood brand. And that's what our City badly needs to do in the tough, sprawl-intoxicated housing marketplace of Northeast Ohio.

Products don't sell themselves--they need shrewd, focused marketing campaigns to get the message out in an impactful way to the target audience. People have correctly observed on this Deck several times that Lakewood can't compete with Avon cornfields to throw up McMansions and WalMarts on the cheap. That's okay, because that's not our target market share. Lakewood can focus in on that slice of market share (i.e. new residents and homebuyers and prospective small business entreprenuers) that DO want what Lakewood has to offer.

What's our growth goals for Lakewood's population and business base over the next year? Three years? Five years? Ten and twenty years? Shooting from the hip, I'd say hundreds of new businesses and thousands of new residents. These are hardly overwhelming targets. These are hardly out of reach. In fact they are VERY doable.

So that's why we're spending our scarce time on this very important question before the community: what is our Vision? And implicit in that are several corollary questions:

• --How do we market our City?
  --What is our City's business plan to succeed?
  --What are several key initiatives to get us started?

Ken, I'd add one key ingredient to your neighborhood metrics: Leadership. Somebody needs to play point and do the scheduling, fliering, welcoming, thanking, recruiting for the next time, etc. When those key people are in place, magic things happen. (See my comments on the Neighborhood Watch thread re: building a volunteer effort. These are the Universal Axioms of community organizing.)

Also, Ken, perhaps the very high proportion of young renters in Lakewood do indeed view Lakewood as a pass-through, short-term, stepping stone neighborhood--which would imply that a large slice of any Lakewood neighborhood is not a target of opportunity. But we can work around this--just target the families and homeowners and retirees with time to share.

Tom-

Re: blockparties (and off on a tangent)

There are two types - one is city sanctioned and the other, not so much.

City sanctioned gets you nice barriers and you can have a fire truck, a DARE car, CERT folks, or a EMV to visit.

No alcohol on the street.

Sometimes neighbors are in a position to run a not-so-organized block party.

But if you want the city's help, you can call and they will give you lots of information - and even recycling bags for bottles and cans!

Most of us don't think to call City Hall to ask about such things, but they can be a great resource because people have been having block parties forever. They probably do have a list of the sanctioned events because one of the departments has to drop off the festive barriers.

I used to live on a street that has a fantastic (unsanctioned) annual block party. I sometimes go back and visit my former neighbors because I know they'll all be there.

And if it rains, one of the neighbors has a big, old Lakewood porch.

Our neighbors have organized block parties in the past, but they were never at a time when we could participate. We missed meeting a lot of neighbors until we had a big project in our front yard.

nice to see some more renter bashing

Maybe if some of the slumlords would spend less money at Lido's and more money at Home Depot, they would have better quality tenants.

Doug

DougHuntingdon wrote:Maybe if some of the slumlords would spend less money at Lido's and more money at Home Depot, they would have better quality tenants.
Doug

Many apartment owners and commercial building owners spend very little on modernization. They offer 70 year old bathrooms, 70 year old kitchens and old gravity furnaces and then bemoan the fact that they can't convince that nice young couple to rent the apartment.

Some owners of doubles think they are modernizing when they take a house with some character and box it all in with nice aluminum siding. I think we are all a little guilty of taking the easy way out even with the homes we live in.

Some investors have owned the same commercial building for 30 or 40 years and yet have never found the time or money to expand the parking or modernize the frontage.

wow Doug, that's an interesting view of property owners. If what you say is true maybe Lakewood should consider a similar club on our side of 117th, might as well have some money kept in town.

I may have been a little harsh, although it is very disconcerting to see all the renter bashing on here, although it had subsided for awhile.

Actually, I wish Lakewood had a club like Twist for the nongays on our side of W117. We have so many places that are all the same. How many Irish "pubs" can you have? How many sports bars? Maybe the law of unintended consequences will create something via the smoking ban. Why let the gays have all the fun!? Did you see that new clothing optional club they have in Cleveland now, too!? They must have spent millions on that.

As far as your direct question, why not have something like Lido's (although classier, I hope) in Lakewood, even if perhaps you or me would not be patrons? Maybe they would not locate here because Lakewood's zoning would be too strict? My understanding is that such clubs can not be outlawed but only "contained," but I am not an attorney. For example, in some areas such clubs are not permitted to serve alcohol. In some areas, the "performers" must remain a certain distance away from the customers, etc.

Doug

This topic is going way off subject, but landlords could put more money into repairs if water bills weren't increasing 20% a year, and insurance increasing 15% per year and property taxes going up 8% per year while rents remain stagnant because of the number of empty units.

David Scott wrote: landlords could put more money into repairs if water bills weren't increasing 20% a year, and insurance increasing 15% per year and property taxes going up 8% per year while rents remain stagnant because of the number of empty units.

That is an excellent point.

The rental business does not exist in a vacuum. The increasing tax burden has a tremendous effect on the ability of landlords to improve and maintain their property. That affect also trickles down to the value of the buildings themselves. The appraised value of those buildings is based on rent income. A building generating $2000 per month instead of $2600 a month is worth less.

When the middle class citizen discovers that they can save thousands of dollars in taxes by moving 10 miles West, it becomes even harder to rent a vacant unit. It is a problem that City officials seem oblivious to. Some people think that if pretending there isn't a problem isn't working the answer is to pretend harder.

The general scope of this post seems to be about the mission of the City. Perhaps the mission statement should be something along the lines of:

The mission of the City of Lakewood is to provide a safe and healthy environment for its citizens, promote a positive business environment and maintain and enhance the value of property all at the lowest possible cost to its citizens.

Does the City have a mission statement?

Well I can't do much about the water bills or taxes but if your insurance rates are going up 15% each year. Please let me know if you would like my help.
What were we talking about again... Predatory lending at blockparties full of Lido dancers in a poorly maintained house? I need to change my contacts, this vision is getting blurry.

Folks, I am, myself, a renter.

A City mission statement has been discussed several times before. (DL are there threads we can link to?) The Vision arguably would bridge from the Mission Statement to an Action Plan.

The cost squeeze on landlords is a legit issue--one of many good reasons to stretch City (and School) dollars.

The way out for Lakewood is to kick our town into an entirely new, higher gear. If we see smart neighborhood development and better-focused commerce, all our synergies (creative, young, family friendly, close-in) will catch fire and the property values will take off as Lakewood desirability skyrockets.

I'm skeptical about the other path: doing more of the same to nickel-and-dime our way into home repairs and $50 rent raises. We need a quantum leap.

Tom-

I don't know what your search criteria are, but if you can find what you are looking for, I can help with links.