Under the Influence of Government Programs

Recent announcements in the neighborhood that this blog need to catch up on include work on the MyArts location at the old car dealership building on North Main funded by the county government’s COMBAT program and a proposed re-rehabilitation of the Palmer School Building for low-income seniors. We’ve already reported about several other programs in the National Historic Landmark District for those convicted of drug crimes. We also have multiple programs for the poor, hungry, disadvantaged, and the criminally challenged. If we still had our Statue of Liberty situated in it historic location on Pleasant Street, she would cry out “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning for controlled substances. “ The MyArts and the Palmer “do-over” have the potential to contribute positively to our historic community. And we need to embrace the diversity of the Truman Neighborhood, one of its biggest assets. Our diversity is not just in our people but include our housing types, architecture, and historical context. We should not forget that the diverse nature of the neighborhood has to include market-rate, non-subsidized investments targeted at young families with the resources to invest in owner-occupied properties. This is critical to achieve an appropriate and sustainable balance. The primary goal established by the Midtown / Truman Road Corridor Neighborhood Revitalization Planand unanimously adopted by the City Council was to increase the number of owner-occupied properties in the neighborhood. From that perspective, some current proposals and trends are taking us a few steps backwards. And it needs to be noted that in the current economic downturn, the marketplace has already created affordable housing without the dependency on government subsidies. Our addiction to government-subsidies appears to be reinforcing the current stereotypes of our city most recently presented in a cover story in The Pitch (local magazine) entitled “Independence’s Rap as Meth City USA Needs Tweaking” which also references the New York Times article of last year, “In Truman Homes, Reflections of a City”, depicting Independence as an economically & pharmaceutically challenged community that is aging and in search of the next fix. If governments are going to invest in programs in the heart of one of our nation’s most important neighborhoods, then they have an obligation to make sure those investments align with local planning goals, are coordinated with other nearby programs, are sustainable even when all levels of governments will soon be forced to make drastic cuts, and are well-supervised and audited periodically for their effectiveness. Unfortunately, this has not always been the case. This blog has reported several times that government investment does not assure success and, in some cases, make situations worst. It took decades to realize that the “Urban Renewal” programs from the 1960’s and 1970’s drove away private investments, encouraged segregation, and failed to protect valuable historic resources. History is supposed to provide lessons so we don’t make similar mistakes over and over again. And it seems when Independence comes up short in city planning and community stewardship, it ends up in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and in hardback version published by the University of Missouri Press.