Meaningful change to community occurs from within

By Walter L. Ross

GUEST COMMENTARY

WHICH COMES first, the chicken or the egg?

This is the question we asked ourselves as we organized the June 4 Richmond Black-on-Black Crime Summit. For us, the answer was clear: street violence in Richmond must end before economic development can flourish.

The tension between commerce and crime has been challenging urban America for decades. A recent study commissioned by the Contra Costa County Department of Public Health identified such indicators as increased insurance premiums, decreased credit ratings, lower appraisal values for lots, inventory shrinkage, concern for personal safety and the high cost of security as disincentives for investment in high-crime areas.

Capital likes reward, not risk.

And so it was that the Bay Area's large developers were noticeably under represented at the May 17 Pre-Application Meeting convened by the Richmond Redevelopment Agency to discuss its proposed 12th and Macdonald Mixed Use Project.

The good news about the project site is that it is the first to be developed under the agency's Macdonald Avenue Economic Revitalization Plan. It is walking distance from BART and the intermodal hub that links Richmond's Iron Triangle to area airports, the state capital and the rest of the world.

The bad news is that the site is a stone's throw away from the intersection of 9th and Pennsylvania, where Jovon Green, 28, was killed by gunshot early Monday morning.

And as the Green homicide, Richmond's eighth this year, was recorded in the 94801 ZIP code, also recorded in 94801 -- according to DataQuick Real Estate News -- was a 21.6 percent increase in home prices between March 2004 and March 2005,

It is the best of times and the worst of times; this is why we convene the Summit.

Today, there is a robust national conversation underway about development in distressed urban communities. Some very large brains have been hard at work for more than two decades trying to reckon the financial, social and moral valuations that attach to investment in such areas.

The Low Income Housing Tax Credit program -- an outgrowth of the Community Reinvestment Act that obliged the banking industry to cease its practice of redlining poor communities -- is an example of a policy innovation under which the public sector effectively delivered incentives to the private sector to stimulate economic growth.

Not-for-profit community development corporations across the U.S., therefore, have been using such tax credits for the past 20 years to rebuild old neighborhoods in such places as Harlem, Newark, Atlanta, Houston, Denver -- and Richmond.

Another innovation at the intersection of policy and finance is the "double bottom line" paradigm. Its principles assert that the rewards from urban development must flow not only to equity investors, but also to the community's long-term residents.

It was double-bottom-line thinking that enabled the Marin City Community Land Corporation to secure joint venture equity partners and complete the $22 million acquisition of the Marin Gateway Retail Center in partnership with the Bay Area Smart Growth Fund.

As a business model, the deal not only emphasized the long-term sustainability of the real estate assets, but also supported economic development opportunities, job creation and social services for community residents.

The policy innovations that have facilitated economic development in distressed communities must now be matched by innovation in the domains of education, employment, human services, family life, spirituality and the essential institutions that constitute the human community.

It is at the intersection of these domains -- with support from an unprecedented coalition of community groups -- that our Summit hopes to locate strategies to end street violence in Richmond.

SUMMIT

The Richmond Black on Black Crime Summit begins at 9 a.m. June 4 and ends at 5 p.m. The free event will be held at Lovonya DeJean Middle School, 3400 Macdonald Ave., Richmond. For more information, call the Richmond Improvement Association at 510-860-3681.

Ross, a Summit organizer, is president of Walter L. Ross & Associates.