learning from neighborhoods: the story of the hampton initiative, 1993-2003

8/9/2019 Learning from Neighborhoods: The Story of the Hampton Initiative, 1993-2003

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LEARNING FROM NEIGHBORHOODS

WRITTEN BY

MICHAEL BAYER

HNTB

WIL LIAM POTAPCHUK

COMMUNITY BUILDING INSTITUTE

THE STORY OF

THE HAMPTON

NEIGHBORHOOD

INITIATIVE, 1993-2003


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THE HAMPTON NEIGHBORHOOD INITIATIVE, 1993-2003 •1

imagineIMAGINE THE FIRST ACT OF A DISHEARTENING SCRIPT THAT HAS PLAYED OUT IN MANY CITIES

OVER A PERIOD OF DECADES: CITY GOVERNMENT ACTS UNILATERALLY AND ARROGANTLY IN

NEIGHBORHOODS. Citizen leaders organize to block city initiatives they think have not beenthought through. City government tries again, this time with superficial citizen involvement.

Neighborhood leaders see through the ruse. City officials, frustrated by citizens opposing

them, continue doing their work the same way, with attitude. Neighborhood organizations,

home to cynics who like fighting City Hall, stagnate. Neighborhoods decline.

Usually, the next act begins under the title: “City leaders organize a neighborhood

initiative.” In most cases, citizens react as they have so many times in the past: What is the

city trying to foist on us now?

What does a c ity that does not want to repeat this script do?

How can City Hall change so citizens want to work with it?

How do neighborhood leaders accustomed to fighting city-driven initiatives begin to

trust City Hall and choose to form partnerships — with the city, other neighborhoods andother agencies?

It’s not easy. But one of the oldest cities in the United States — HAMPTON, VIRGINIA — is in

the midst of decade-long renaissance that has transformed the way citizens, city hall, schools

and community-based organizations come together to improve their neighborhoods…

■ ■ ■ ■ ■


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began to change. Maybe there was

something to it.

Attending Neighborhood College

“made you sit and think that maybe

other things could happen in our

neighborhoods, that maybe relation-

ships could be different,” he said. “I

found it to be a mind-broadening

experience, and thought, maybe I

have to start thinking outside of thebox I’m used to.”

Bigelow decided to give the new

neighborhood initiative a chance and

began to participate, as a partner.

If Bigelow were a lone convert, this

story would be a short one. But he’s

not. Throughout Hampton are scores

of neighborhood leaders who have

participated in the Neighborhoods

Initiative and have undergone similar

transitions in their thinking.

“I thought it was eyewash,” said

Andre McCloud, a resident of the

Greater Wythe neighborhood whonow serves on the Neighborhood

Commission. “It was only after I went

that I realized how much I did not

know about the city. It really opened

my eyes.”

In time, Bigelow and McCloud

would become two of the initiative’s

most ardent supporters. Today, 10

years later, Bigelow sees a changed

climate in Hampton.

“As neighborhood leaders, we’re

talking with city officials, we’re

working with City Hall, and we’re

accomplishing our goals throughout

the city,” he said. “We see that we can

approach issues positively and get

things done, and I think most civic

group leaders who have worked with

the initiative would tell you that.”

Neighborhood leaders are not the

only ones who have changed. While

the popular press touts corporatetransformations from GE to IBM,

similar efforts within public sector

organizations often are overlooked. In

Hampton, that change is profound.

Not only have staff throughout

government changed their attitudes

and enhanced their ability to work

with neighborhoods, they have

changed the way the organization

works to foster sustained collabora-

tive efforts with communities.

The initiative’s successes are

tangible: a community center

functioning in a long-shutteredschool, a museum celebrating the

history of the only resettlement

community in the United States

designed and constructed by

African-Americans; a learning center

in a former bar; neighborhoods

stabilized and on the rise.

Neighborhoods have achieved their

goals by mustering resources they

would not have been able to access

without collaborating with the city.

From the city’s perspective, the initia-

tive has helped to identify neighbor-

hood needs and priorities and allocate

limited resources that are not only

responsive to neighborhood priorities,

but leverage resources from citizens,

community based organizations,

schools, businesses and other partners.

The successes are intangible, too:

new and rich networks of citizens and

city officials who know and trust oneanother and are willing to work

together when a crisis arises.

In this document, we tell the

stories of Hampton’s Neighborhoods

Initiative during its first 10 years,

the elements upon which the initia-

tive is built, and the lessons

that the city and neighbor-

hoods have learned

during this innova-

tive experiment in

civic involvement.

But the story is

far from over.In the final

analysis, perhaps the most important

lesson is that Hampton is still

changing, still improving, still

learning. The effort to improve neigh-

borhoods has evolved constantly, in

the community as well as within local

government. And the evolution is not

done, as neighborhood leaders in

Hampton continue to address an

evolving set of challenges.

Although the goal of building

relationships has been realized,

the work of building relationships

and reaching out in new ways is

never done.

Act three is just beginning. ■


“As neighborhood leaders,

we’re talking with city officials,

we’re working with City Hall,

and we’re accomplishing our goalsthroughout the city…”

—ANDY BIGELOW


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ampton, a city of just under

150,000 people, shares a penin-

sula with its neighbor, Newport

News, at the southern end of the

Chesapeake Bay. The city offers some

of the most affordable urban opportu-

nities among bayside communities for

people wanting to live near the water.

That is good news and bad.

Hampton, like many other juris-dictions in Virginia, is heavily

dependent upon real estate taxes to

balance the city budget. The value

and condition of its housing stock,

therefore, are vital to the city’s fiscal

health, and this asset is at risk.

In the early 1990s, the issue

became clear. According to the 1990

census, housing values in Hampton

were among the lowest in the

Hampton Roads region, a wakeup call

for a city that, at the time, was

becoming a poster child for the

reinventing government movement.“The statistics scared us,” said then

Mayor James Eason. “We knew we

could not continue this decline.

Otherwise we were going to be like

some cities in Virginia that we did not

want to be like.”1

Effective neighborhood initiatives

rarely emerge from a vacuum; rather,

a history, a set of conditions, and a

mobilization of public and political

will coalesce into a commitment to

create, staff and fund what for many

jurisdictions can become a major

focus over a long period of time.

Hampton was no exception. While

the disheartening data from the 1990

census may have been the trigger,

Hampton had been headed toward

more proactive work in neighbor-

hoods for several years.

Indeed, the history of Hampton’s

Neighborhoods Initiative starts withthe city’s efforts in 1987 to update its

Comprehensive Plan, the policy

document that guides land use and

development in the city. One of the

major proposals in the draft plan was

a new east-west expressway. And, as it

had been each time this idea was

raised before, the community was

angry.

Joan Kennedy, then Director of

Planning, remembers:

I had just done my spiel about how

the comprehensive plan is the commu-

nity’s vision. But when I looked around,there was just this sea of angry faces out

there. I thought this must come a lot

closer to being these people’s nightmare

rather than their vision.2

Not only were residents angry

about the road, they were upset that

they had not been consulted about

the plan before it was publicized.

Rather than pushing forward with the

plan as many jurisdictions do, city

manager Bob O’Neill took a step back.

Meeting with neighborhood leaders,

he proposed a consensus building

process. Neighbors agreed, on two

conditions: “City Council had to

publicly support the process and the

proposed highway had to be removed

from the plan and not reconsidered

unless the consensus committee

agreed to it.”3

Facilitated by assistant city

manager Mike Monteith, a diverse setof stakeholders reached consensus on

a revised Comprehensive Plan,

agreeing to preserve the proposed

road’s right of way as a park until the

traffic on adjacent roads reached

certain levels, at which time the road

would be built.

The effort was viewed by many as

a great success. Monteith described

the reactions of staff:

The planners were amazed; the

results were more creative than

anything they had done previously.

When the community has an equal voicewith you, you have to really debate the

planning issues, to figure out how to

meet everybody’s requirements. That’s

when you really get creative.

And then he summed up:

There’s no doubt it was the most

successful comp plan we’ve had to

date… It is the only one that has dealt

with controversial issues in a long-term,

and not a short-term way.

This was the beginning of the

changing relationship between neigh-

4 • LEARNING FROM NEIGHBORHOODS

H

HOUSING VALUES,

ROAD FIGHTS

AND YOUTH ISSUES

SPAWN AN INITIATIVE


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bors and City Hall. Said Jim Dick, a

neighborhood representative to the

consensus committee, “When the

process was initiated, it was a kind of

us-against-them mentality. You could

see it on both sides. Once everyone

started recognizing each other as

individuals, we could discuss issues

and deal with them.”

Linda McNeely, another partici-pant who was later elected to City

Council, concluded: “The biggest

thing I got out of the consensus group

was that the city government and staff

were not the enemy.”

The success with the consensus-

based conflict resolution process

inspired the initial paradigm shift in

planning processes in Hampton.

Senior staff from throughout city

government were trained in facilita-

tion skills; the planning department

began to involve citizens in neighbor-

hood planning; and, despite a subse-quent stumble on an effort that

sought consensus on solid waste

issues, this type of participatory

process was growing legs.

About the same time, another set

of activities received federal funding.

In 1990, the US Department of Health

and Human Services Center for

Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP),

which had been making important

investments in communities during

the late 1980s and early ‘90s, funded a


HAMPTON ROADS REGION


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project in Hampton. Starting life as

the Families and Youth At-Risk

Initiating Committee, the Hampton

Coalition for Youth (as it became

known) grew into an impor-

tant springboard for neigh-

borhood action.

The broad-based coalition,

which sought to improve

opportunities for youth anddecrease risky behavior,

engaged adults, youth,

nonprofits, the faith commu-

nity, and city leaders in a

multi-year learning, planning

and action process. Their

work was inspired by an

emerging national youth

development field that focused on

creating healthy environments that

support youth.

Coalition leaders took to heart a

simple but profound statement

from the Search Institute, a leader inthe field of youth development:

“Communities do make a difference

in the lives of youth. And many of the

contributing factors are within a

community’s control.”4

The coalition’s work culminated in

a 1993 report to the mayor, which

included a “Neighborhood Initiatives

Program” as one of four major recom-

mendations. The report framed many

of the principles that ultimately

shaped Hampton’s neighborhood

initiative: a commitment to involving

youth, an asset-based approach, and a

recognition that schools served as the

center of most neighborhoods.

Meanwhile, Hampton’s govern-

ment was being reinvented, one

stultifying bureaucratic process after

another. City Manager Bob O’Neill,

with the support of Mayor Eason and

the Hampton City Council, believedthat “the fundamental transformation

of public systems and organizations to

create dramatic increases in their

effectiveness, efficiency, adaptability,

and capacity to innovate” was not

only possible, they were going to

make it happen in their own

backyard.5

“Luckily for us, Hampton has been

blessed with city managers and

councils that encouraged experimen-

tation,” Monteith said. “The city

manager was not happy unless the

staff was re-creating the wheel everyday. We had a corporate expectation

to push the envelope, and that helped

us significantly.”

One of the tenets of the

reinventing government movement

was the recognition that ‘one size does

not fit all,’ a principle that would

underlie Hampton’s neighborhood

efforts. Federal policies that treated all

cities in the same manner no longer

were viewed as effective. City govern-

ment policies that addressed all

neighborhoods in the same way were

not effective either. A city council that

built community centers in every

neighborhood, for example, without

first asking the neighborhoods

whether this was important to them

would not be making the best invest-

ment of public resources.

While national recognition was

still over the horizon, efforts that had

started in the late 1980s were already

taking hold. Like many cities thatwere reinventing themselves,

Hampton officials debated their vision

statement for almost a year, culmi-

nating with one that is simple and

bold: “To be the most livable city

in Virginia.” ■



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t is against this backdrop that, in

1993, the mayor declared in his

state of the city address that neighbor-

hoods would be one of the city’s four

most important priorities. But priori-

ties do not make a program, and city

leaders were bucking the same

national trends that were challenging

other communities. City decision-

makers had recognized a shift indecision-making from the national,

state and local scales to the global,

regional and neighborhood arenas. If

Hampton were to prosper, under this

line of thinking, neighborhoods had

to be empowered to identify their

own agendas and carry them out.

Moreover, the leadership structure

in many American cities had been

changing from top-down to bottom-

up. No longer were cities dominated

by one or more corporations that

determined the course of city politics

and ensured that local needs weremet. As the relative power and influ-

ence of these corporations waned, a

vacuum was created and neighbor-

hoods were “not prepared to make

decisions, so the city had to do

something to help them get

prepared,” Eason said.

These factors, coupled with a

potentially dire housing and

employment outlook, made it clear

to city officials that, despite their

best efforts to reinvent city govern-

ment, Hampton did not and would

not have all of the resources it

needed to meet the needs of its

neighborhoods without working

with them. To create the kind of city

that citizens wanted, city govern-

ment would have to collaborate with

the citizens to set priorities and

determine how best to fulfill each

neighborhood’s (and, by extension,the city’s) most pressing needs.

As city leaders tried to accomplish

this goal, however, it became clear

that they did not know what the

neighborhoods’ priorities were, much

less which citizens were willing to

partner. Not only did city government

lack an effective system for working

with neighborhoods, the neighbor-

hoods themselves were not organized

in a way that ensured their leaders

truly were representing the people

within their borders. City staff did not

discover the second problem untilthey tried to deal with the first.

“What was clear up front was that

the city was never going to have the

resources necessary to meet all neigh-

borhood needs unless we got into an

active partnership with neighbor-

hoods,” said Bob O’Neill, who left

Hampton in 1997 and now serves as

executive director of the International

City/County Management Association

in Washington D.C. “And even if our

resources were not limited, we were

still missing neighborhood priorities,

so we also had to build community

leadership to discover them.”

To identify neighborhood priori-

ties, new lines of communication

between city government and neigh-

borhoods, and leadership and collab-

oration within neighborhoods would

need to be created and fostered. As

these needs became clearer, theconcept of a neighborhood initiative

began to take form.

Fortunately, Hampton was well

positioned to move ahead. To many in

Hampton, collaborating with neigh-

borhoods seemed like a natural step.

In some older neighborhoods,

Hampton residents traditionally had

identified with their neighborhoods

and carried a strong sense of neigh-

borhood pride. The City Council had

reinforced these feelings over the

years through policies aimed at

strengthening and supporting neigh-borhoods.

Several key staff, including Joan

Kennedy, Mike Monteith, and Cindy

Carlson from the Hampton Coalition

for Youth, worked together to develop

a description of the Department of

Neighborhood Services. ■

FRAMING

THE INITIATIVE

I


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o move the idea forward, City

Manager Bob O’Neill appointed

a committee (known as the “initiating

committee”) to design the process of

working with neighborhoods and

identify members of the public who

would serve on a steering committee,

which would take on the task of

determining how to structure the

initiative. At the same time, the CityCouncil established the Department

of Neighborhood Services (soon

renamed the Neighborhood Office),

staffed by Joan Kennedy and three

neighborhood facilitators.

The Neighborhood Office’s initial

work plan was straightforward. Staff

would spend the first year working

with the steering committee to

design the neighborhood initiative

and figure out what the office was

going to do. They would develop an

organizational structure, gather

information about neighborhoods,launch some initial programs,

monitor how well the programs

were being carried out, and develop

some early “lessons learned” that

could be applied to the program’s

design. If all went well, in the

second year, the office would be

prepared to develop a set of three

neighborhood plans, then continue

on a schedule to draft three plans

each year until every neighborhood

in Hampton had one.

At least that was the idea. But as

soon as the office opened, a line began

forming at the door.

Many neighborhood leaders were

eager to be served, so many, in fact,

that Kennedy and her staff decided to

change their approach. Each neigh-

borhood that came in became a pilot,

so residents would not have to wait

for services as the city developed theprogram design. This provided the

Neighborhood Office with “laborato-

ries” where they could apply the ideas

that staff and the steering committee

were developing on their own as well

as gathering from other communities.

“We didn’t say ‘no’ to any neigh-

borhood,” Kennedy said. “Our

original plan was to be very struc-

tured, but that was when we didn’t

know anything about neighborhood

work. This is a very messy business

and you have to be very flexible.”

The office began working witheight pilot neighborhoods —

Aberdeen Gardens, Park Place, Old

North Hampton, North Back River,

Eason Park, Wythe, Wythe-Phenix

and Newtown – and from these early

efforts, staff developed a set of obser-

vations that were contrary to some of

the commonly held assumptions

about neighborhoods. It was these

lessons, much more than national

research, that determined the final

design of the neighborhood initiative:

■ Many neighborhoods that appear

visually or statistically most distressed

often have the richest human assets;

their residents have a long history of

taking care of one another.

■ People will invest themselves in their

neighborhoods, some at great incon-

venience and some despite great fear.

■ People do not always blame others

for neighborhood problems or claim

others should do all the work. They

commonly look to themselves and

their neighbors to make things better

and seek to enlist the support of the

police, the churches, the schools and

the city in their efforts.

■ When asked open-ended questions

about life in neighborhoods, people

talk first about safety, a sense of

community, youth, jobs and good

housing. Many of these concerns arehighly symbolic and can be addressed

readily with existing resources.

■ When they talk about safety, many

people in fact are asking for a

different relationship with their police

officer. They want someone they

know, someone who will be part of

making their neighborhood safer,

someone they can reach out to.


T

NEIGHBORHOODS

LINE UP

AS OFFICE

OPENS


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■ Many neighborhoods understand and

desire the concept of ‘partnership.’

The greater challenge to them is

changing the mindset of government.

These observations became the

assumptions upon which the initia-

tive was built and provided a context

that distinguished Hampton’s

approach. ■


CITY OF HAMPTON NEIGHBORHOOD DISTRICTS


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GUIDING

PRINCIPLES

s they moved ahead on the

design, city staff and the

steering committee asked themselves

many questions, trying to look at the

problem from every angle: How do

we define a neighborhood? Which

neighborhoods should participate

first? How does city government

prepare neighborhoods to participate

in this process? How do we developpartnerships? How do we focus on

youth? What is the best way to take

a holistic approach to the idea of

neighborhood “health”?

After a year of study and experi-

ence of working with neighbor-

hoods, the steering committee, with

input from the Neighborhood

Office, concluded that the initiative

would have the best chance to

succeed if it had a clear philosophy

or set of values that articulated a

new vision of neighborhoods andthe human, physical and intangible

resources within them.

The committee envisioned a city

“where individuals and families, by

creating healthy neighborhoods,

have the opportunity to succeed in

realizing their full potential for a

better quality of life.” The committee

was especially adamant that the

initiative would be about creating

“opportunities,” not “doing to or

for” neighborhoods. Instead, the

vision would be realized by acting ona set of principles that would

underlie the entire initiative:

A

▲


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PARTNERSHIP

By supporting partnerships among

neighborhoods, schools, businesses,

community institutions and govern-

ment, the city could help to provide

neighborhoods with resources that

could make a difference but not

provide all the resources itself. Theidea was to maximize the ability of

neighborhoods to help themselves

and minimize the use of experts from

outside the neighborhoods.

This type of partnership would

require a new type of relationship

between neighborhoods and the city,

based on a willingness of both city

government and neighborhoods to

collaborate. City government would

have to be willing to enter into long-

term relationships with neighbor-

hoods and not be tempted to try

quick fixes. Neighborhoods,meanwhile, would have to avoid

reverting to the old model of “we

complain and the city should deliver.”

INCLUSIVENESS

Every neighborhood should have

an opportunity to participate in the

initiative. Similarly, all citizens and

other stakeholders should be invited

to participate in any activity related to

the initiative.

Inclusiveness was important for avery practical reason. If the city were

to enter into partnerships with neigh-

borhoods and carry out changes in

physical or social structures, then the

city had a responsibility to ensure that

the partnerships were genuine, and

that neighborhood representation was

not limited to a vocal few. This

principle would be applied citywide

(by including all neighborhoods) and

within neighborhoods themselves (by

offering the opportunity to everyone

who would be affected by decisions in

the decision making process).

COMPREHENSIVENESS

A neighborhood’s quality of life is

not limited to bricks and mortar.

Thus, neighborhood efforts should

not be limited to physical improve-

ments. A healthy neighborhood feels

safe and supports the needs of its

residents for social interaction, recre-

ation, education, civic involvement

and access to goods and services.

A FOCU S ON YOUT H AND FAMI LIE S

Traditionally in Hampton, youth

and families had been viewed as

separate from neighborhoods, schools

and local government. Services and

resources had been targeted narrowly,

most often in response to crises. But

strengthening and supporting youth

and families should happen where

people live.

Neighborhoods, therefore, would

be viewed as resources for families.

This “youth focus” would not be

something done for youth. Rather,youth would be involved in

designing and carrying out the

programs and opportunities that

would be available to them.

RECOGNIZING UNIQUENESS

Only a neighborhood can define

what makes it healthy. Therefore, the

initiative would attempt to appreciate

the culture, heritage, character, assets

and aspirations of every neighbor-

hood in the city.

…strengthening

and supporting

youth and families

should happen

where people live.


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BUILDING ON STRENGTHS

In the past, city government had

focused on problems, because, by

identifying problems, the city could

intervene, which brought money and

attention to neighborhoods. But

through this process, the city effec-

tively had taught neighborhoods tovalue their problems.

Instead of focusing on what neigh-

borhoods did not have or could not

do, the initiative would focus on the

ability and capacity of neighborhoods

to shape their own futures, in the

concept the city called “asset orienta-

tion,” or viewing residents and neigh-

borhoods as producers, not

consumers. These “assets” include

the skills, gifts, knowledge, energy,

resources and values that citizens

bring to their neighborhoods, both

individually and collectively. Throughthe initiative, the city would tap these

assets to fill gaps it could not address

with city resources.

PLANNING WITH ACT ION

Because neighborhood planning

can be a long and complex process,

citizens looking for quick action can

become frustrated. To balance the

need to be deliberative about

complex and expensive issues yet

show some immediate progress,

planning efforts would include

short-term actions that everyone

could readily agree to, on issues

where the resources were readily

available, such as neighborhood

cleanups, or neighborhood signs.

LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

Because the initiative would rely

on the strengths and abilities of

citizens to identify priorities and help

to carry out plans, developing leader-

ship would be critical to its success.

Several programs or “building blocks”

would be created to develop neigh-

borhood leadership and strengthen

their skill set.

LISTENING

Finally, for the initiative to

succeed, city officials and neighbor-

hood leaders would have to listen to

one another and encourage respect

for diverse ideas — a philosophical

shift for two groups that were moreaccustomed to telling each other

what to do. ■


15/52


hetoric, as citizens know, onlygoes so far. The emerging

philosophy of the initiative had all the

right words, but the real test would be

in the actions. After working with the

pilot neighborhoods, articulating

lessons, and beginning to reorganize

internally, city officials realized they

had raised expectations and needed to

deliver a comprehensive approach.

They also had a strong sense of what

was needed, given their analysis, the

early lessons, and, most importantly,

from listening to citizens.

The underlying framework wasstraightforward – share leadership of

the initiative with neighborhood

leaders and institutional stakeholders,

build individual and organizational

capacity in neighborhoods and city

government, catalyze numerous small

neighborhood improvements, and

develop citizen-driven neighborhood

plans to define visions and goals and

significant actions – ownership,

capacity, and actions based on plans.

Undergirding this framework was

a core belief that Joan Kennedy

frequently asserts. Especially today, a

community has only so much energy

to work on community improvement,

she said. People in a community often

spend their time fighting or

backbiting or working on unrelated

projects that do not support each

other. Synergy is found, she suggests,

when a community has people

working together on efforts and

strategies that support each other.

This commonsense approach can be

found throughout Hampton’s efforts.■

BUILDING

THE INITIATIVE

BEYOND

THE PRINCIPLES

R


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n the earliest years, the

Neighborhood Initiative was a

staff-driven enterprise. Staff listened,

staff consulted, staff engaged, but

ultimately staff decided. Yet the

program’s philosophy articulated a

goal of partnership. That goal was

easier to implement on the neighbor-

hood level using existing structures,

by creating ad hoc processes thatbrought together potential partners.

At the citywide level, a forum for

regular conversation and deliberation

among partners did not exist.

The architects of the initiative

decided it was essential to build a

citywide body that brought together

neighborhood leaders and other

stakeholders to guide the neighbor-

hood initiative. In

Hampton, those bodies are

called commissions and

thus, the Neighborhood

Commission was born.The Neighborhood

Commission provides

leadership, policy guidance

and support to the

Neighborhood Initiative.

While it is now seen as

critical to the initiative, it

was not always that way. As

the commission began to

do its work, questions arose

about its role, how it related to other

organizations, and whether it was

organized properly. Commissioners

did not understand what they were

supposed to do and spent a lot of time

setting policy and approving

Neighborhood Development Fund

projects. They also had trouble under-

standing how their work related to

the ongoing work of two other

groups, the Neighborhood Task Force

and the Neighborhood College

Alumni Association, the first made upof city officials, the second of

residents. With so much on their

plate, the commission was not

completely effective, and after a time,

they decided to reinvent themselves.

During the reinvention process,

they wrestled with core questions.

Did they effectively function like a

board of directors for a nonprofit

organization, setting policy direction

for staff, or were they more like a

board advising City Council, doling

out neighborhood development

grants? Did they need to be represen-

tative of every neighborhood, or only

of neighborhood perspectives? Some

of the commission’s most difficult

meetings occurred during this time.

The conversation led to the delin-

eation of 10 neighborhood districts,

covering every part of the city.

Representatives were to be elected

from each district through a neigh-borhood-based process. These are the

first ten members of the commission.

Three representatives of the city —

currently an assistant city manager,

the director of public works, and the

public communications officer —

join them. In addition, three institu-

tional representatives are on the

commission, representing business,

nonprofits and the faith community.

As a part of the city’s commitment to

involving youth directly in decision-

SHARING LEADERSHIP:

THE NEIGHBORHOOD

COMMISSION

I

…it was essential

to build

a citywide body

that brought together

neighborhood leaders

and other

stakeholders…


17/52


making, two youth representatives

also serve. Three representatives fromthe schools round out the 21-

member body.

Today the commission functions

like a non-profit board of directors,

providing policy guidance to the

initiative, establishing the direction

and making decisions. Meeting

monthly, members typically organize

around the goals and objectives set

out in the city’s strategic plan. Most

of their work takes place in

committee, where they gather,

sometimes once a week, to examine

issues related to youth, capacitybuilding and marketing the program,

among other issue areas identified in

the strategic plan.

Like the initiative itself, the

commission struggles with questions

of outreach and involvement. As

Andy Bigelow, who serves on the

commission, says, “The commission

still struggles to get citizens and

organizations involved in the initia-

tive. We are still stymied, we have not

been able to break through to get folks

interested in doing things in neigh-

borhoods. It’s almost like we’re

relegated to deal with the few folks

who want to engage us. But this ebbs

and flows. Our relationship with one

organization will get better, then the

people involved will disappear and

we’ll start over again. We’re still strug-

gling to find a way to work with that

problem, but I think we’re makinginroads and are being more accepted

for what we are.”

While the commission has been

challenged with connecting with

citizens who are not on the commis-

sion, it has played an essential role

in building partnerships among

commissioners, as well as creating

stronger connections with the

schools, city government and non-

profits agencies at a citywide level,

around work in specific neighbor-

hoods, a task that was very difficult

prior to its creation. ■

NEIGHBORHOOD

COMMISSION

DISTRICT REPRESENTATIVES . . . . . 10

CITY REPRESENTATIVES. . . . . . . . . 3

INSTITUTIONAL

REPRESENTATIVES . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

SCHOOL REPRESENTATIVES . . . . . . 3

YOUTH REPRESENTATIVES . . . . . . . 2

TOTAL NEIGHBORHOOD

COMMISSION MEMBERS . . 21


18/52


he initiative’s first challenge was

to embrace neighborhoods as

partners. “But when we first started

out, we had no idea of how to do it,”

Joan Kennedy explained. “Nobody

knew anybody else, and some

residents viewed city employees as

heartless bureaucrats instead of the

‘average human beings’ that most of us

are … We also needed to unravel thelayers of mistrust toward city govern-

ment that had built up over the years.”

This lesson was brought home to

Kennedy during a conversation she

had with a citizen while still serving

as planning director. It happened

while she was staffing a consensus

building committee working on an

east-west parkway. During the heat of

the controversy, a man who was

serving on the committee saw her at

his church, which, coincidentally, was

the same church she attended. So

surprised was he to see her in a placeof worship that he told her, “I didn’t

know you went to church!” He

expressed even greater shock upon

discovering that she had children.

Apparently, some citizens did not

believe city workers had regular lives

outside the office.

Many more residents would need

to have this kind of epiphany if the

initiative were to succeed to evoke the

sea change in thinking that the city

was seeking. But how could the city

create an environment where this

would happen?

As the importance of this question

began to sharpen in their minds, staff

members from the Neighborhood

Office were making another

discovery. They found that many

citizens understood the concept of

partnership, but few really under-

stood how the city was applying theidea in the initiative. Despite early

outreach efforts, many citizens

continued to view city government as

the provider of services and neighbor-

hoods as the recipients.

Changing this mindset would

require that the relationship between

neighborhoods and city government

change as well. In an attempt to do

this, Kennedy and others created

Neighborhood College, an intense,

multi-session program taught by city

officials as a kind of City Government

101, a school for neighborhood

leaders.

The program was built on the

assumption that citizens distrusted

government at least in part because

they did not understand what citygovernment did. Neighborhood

College would try to bridge this gap

by giving neighborhood leaders an

insider’s view of the city. At its core,

the program was an opportunity for

city staff and neighborhood leaders to

build relationships with one another

across organizational lines in a non-

contentious setting.

In one session, dubbed Budget

101, participants learned about city

revenues – where the money came

from, where it was spent, how little

discretionary income the city reallyhad, and why expanding the commer-

cial tax base improved the city’s finan-

cial health. Another session focused

on economic strategies. A third

examined land use. A fourth looked at

the connections between youth,

neighborhoods and schools. Mixed in

were tours of City Hall and neighbor-

hoods.

“Through Neighborhood College,

you get a better understanding on

what it takes to run a city and you get

BUILDING

NEIGHBORHOOD

CAPACITY:

SEND ‘EM

TO COLLEGE

T


19/52

to know (city) staff people,” said

Andy Bigelow. “You get some idea

about what (city officials) really want

to do, and what they’re trying to do.”

Sitting side by side at the weekly

sessions, residents and city officials

began to forge personal relationships

with one another. No longer were the

city manager, planning director and

other city officials viewed as peoplewho just attended public meetings

every Tuesday night.

As time went on, this helped some

of the barriers that separated the

public and the government to disap-

pear. “The citizens got to know us as

people, and we found that there’s a lot

of mileage in that,” Kennedy said.

Inside city government, the experi-

ence of Neighborhood College led

some officials to realize that they had

no idea what was going on in some

neighborhoods. Talking directly with

residents helped to open lines of communication that did not exist

before. These conversations helped

officials look at neighborhoods

through the citizens’ own eyes.

One Parks Department employee

who attended Neighborhood College

remarked that after completing the

course she began to see neighbor-

hoods as more than the trees and

grass for which she was responsible.

She could see them in terms of what

the people who lived there wanted

them to be. Other staff members had

similar experiences.

Fifteen neighborhood leaders and

five city employees attended the first

class in the spring of 1995.

Recognizing the value of the connec-

tions the program yielded, the city

soon established a Neighborhood

College Alumni Association to

provide a medium for graduates tospread the word about the benefits of

the college.

The strategy worked. The

second Neighborhood College

attracted 25 people and

cemented a program that would

serve as one of the initiative’s

building blocks. More than 323

graduates (as of early 2003) and the

alumni association now actively

contribute to community affairs.

The Aberdeen Gardens neighbor-

hood, in particular, has made

attending Neighborhood College apriority. “Most of my (committee)

chairs are graduates,” said Roosevelt

Wilson, president of the Aberdeen

Gardens Historic and Civic

Association. “I think it’s a wonderful

program.”

It may be old-fashioned civic pride,

but it works. Stephanie Taylor,

another graduate, described what she

gained: “I now know how to imple-

ment positive change in my neighbor-

hood and where to go to access

resources through the city. I have a

new pride in the city by virtue of knowing what’s been done, and what

is being done to make Hampton a

better place to live.”

Neighborhood College has

provided the city a medium to

provide better and more complete

information to residents, as well as

access to city leaders. These factors,

over time, have helped to improve

the public perception of city govern-

ment and bolster the credibility of

the initiative. ■


Neighborhood College

has provided the citya medium to provide

better and more complete

information to residents,

as well as access

to city leaders.


20/52


uilding trust goes beyond

building relationships, however.

By acting as a partner with neigh-

borhoods, the Neighborhood Office

had raised the bar for all city depart-

ments by raising the public’s expec-

tations. Although this was a giant

step forward, Neighborhood Office

staff feared the growing goodwill

would only continue if neighbor-hoods had positive interactions with

all city departments. This was

especially important because in

most cases these other departments

(and not the Neighborhood Office)

possessed the resources that neigh-

borhoods most wanted.

It was one thing for the city to say

that Hampton had changed the way it

worked with neighborhoods, but

what if residents approached a city

department to act collaboratively only

to be rebuffed? Even one bad experi-

ence could undo some of themomentum the initiative had created.

For the initiative to be successful, all

city departments would need to

change the way they did business and

devise a way to provide their services

on a neighborhood basis.

In the past, citizens who had sought

city services were not always greeted

warmly. After all, some bureaucrats

had reasoned, wasn’t it the job of city

government to meet the broad policy

goals set by elected officials and not

become mired in the single-issue

politics of local complainers?

“Neighborhood organizations

and leaders tended to be viewed as a

nuisance, always telling the city

what to do and diverting us from

doing what we thought was best,”

Joan Kennedy said.

“Our first message was internal to

city government, namely, that weneeded to view neighborhoods as a

strategic issue and neighborhood

leaders as resources and partners

instead of complaining adversaries,”

Kennedy said, and to do this, align-

ment from the top was needed.

One of the initiative’s primary

internal issues was allocating city

resources. To change how the city did

business – to provide what the initia-

tive leaders were calling ‘neighbor-

hood-based service delivery,’ or

allocating resources on a neighbor-

hood basis – better communicationamong city departments was required

and a new approach to allocating

resources between city departments

and the neighborhoods themselves

was needed.

To address these issues, city

manager Bob O’Neill assigned the

heads of the departments with the

resources most in demand by neigh-

borhoods to a Neighborhood Task

Force. After studying the issue, the

task force concluded that the city’s

relationship with neighborhoods was

hampered by systems that worked

well for city government but not as

well for neighborhoods. If Hampton

really were serious about changing its

relationship with neighborhoods,

these systems would have to change.

The means to better neighborhood

service delivery took the form of area

improvement teams. The first, estab-lished in Aberdeen Gardens, was

comprised of officials from several

city departments who worked with

neighborhood groups on specific

projects to improve the neighbor-

hood’s quality of life.

The team was directed to think less

about the departments they worked

in and more about what had to be

done to improve neighborhoods. The

idea also was to provide opportunities

for the neighborhood to help itself.

The area team concept worked

well in Aberdeen, a cohesive African-

American neighborhood in central

FOCUSING

CITY GOVERNMENT

ON

NEIGHBORHOODS

B


21/52

Hampton where some homes had

been in the same families since the

1930s. This neighborhood had

resources the area team could draw

upon: residents hosted meetings of

the area team in their homes, and

several contractors who had the

ability to complete public improve-

ments lived in the neighborhood.

However, when the task force

tried to form a team in each of

Hampton’s 10 newly created neigh-

borhood districts (defined byanother Neighborhood Office

project), the concept was not as

successful. By applying the same idea

throughout the city, the initiative

went against the reinventing govern-

ment principle of ‘one size does not

fit all,’ and the approach did not

work well. Moreover, as Kennedy

said, “we had the capacity to be

extremely responsive to one area, but

not to the whole city at one time.”

The resources that existed in

Aberdeen did not exist to the same

degree in other neighborhoods.

After a few years of stops and

starts, the city decided to establish

area teams only after a neighborhood

completed a plan or was seeking

services best served by that model; in

effect, the area teams morphed into

implementation teams that would

help to carry out the plan.

Today, area teams are tailored to the

issues that a community is trying to

address; instead of a standardmembership, teams are made up of

city staff who control the resources

the projects require.

The notion of the Neighborhood

Task Force and the area teams bridged

some of the competing concepts

within the reinventing government

movement. Initially focused on the

idea of “citizen as customer,” propo-

nents of reinvention had urged local

governments to create seamless, one-

stop connections to their customers.

If Hampton’s area teams had only

organized themselves to deliver

services better, they would have

violated the “partnership” principle of

the neighborhood initiative (itself a

manifestation of the reinventing

government movement), because

they would have been acting

independently of the neighborhoods.

By working with citizens collec-tively and fashioning a service

delivery strategy that is driven by the

community, the city is effectively

collaborating with the community to

achieve shared goals – a dramatic

change from separate agencies with

separate plans working on different

timelines that was in place before the

initiative began.

Once the program was off the

ground, the issue of internal ‘align-

ment’ became a central challenge.

Although the efforts made by the

Neighborhood Task Force were “thespark that created a new way of

working in the city government,”

according to assistant city manager

Mike Monteith, the challenge

remains. Some departments have

bought into the community

involvement process and have

devised creative ways to involve the

public in decision making, while

others are not as comfortable with

the approach, he said.

“Today, we still have departments

that don’t understand community

participation,” Monteith said. “And

we still hear from sectors of the

community who complain that the

old way of doing business is still alive,

but we are getting there.”

To accomplish the initiative’s

broader goals, the city and its neigh-

borhoods would have to learn how to

work together. This would be a two-fold learning process. At the begin-

ning, the city could not collaborate

with neighborhoods because it did

not know what the neighborhoods’

priorities were. However, even if all

sides were willing, nobody knew

exactly how to proceed. To be

successful, the initiative would have

to address both aspects.

“In true collaboration, the city

brings what it knows to the table and

the neighborhood brings what it

knows, and we make something

better than what either could doalone,” Kennedy said. ■


ABERDEEN MUSEUM • BEFORE ABERDEEN MUSEUM • AFTER


22/52


he internal capacity issues that

the Neighborhood Task Force

was grappling with had an external

analog: neighborhood capacity, or the

ability of neighborhoods to muster

the resources needed to carry out

their goals.

In the early days of the initiative,

Neighborhood Office staff struggled

to define capacity and what it lookedlike. Soon it became clear, however,

that capacity, in whatever form it was

taking, was weak across the city, a

finding that became a driving force

behind the city’s decision to launch

programs such as Neighborhood

College.

Building capacity has been perhaps

the most important function of the

initiative because of the key role that

neighborhoods play in it. If neighbor-

hoods cannot come together to set

priorities, gather resources and imple-

ment their goals, the initiative as awhole cannot succeed.

In many neighborhoods, capacity

has proven to be the dividing line

between success and failure.

Successful neighborhoods “are the

ones that care the most and have

placed their own projects as number

one on their agenda,” Joan Kennedy

said. Neighborhoods where leaders

have assumed responsibility for

seeing projects through and who have

made neighborhood work almost a

full-time job generally have achieved

their goals, while less successful

neighborhoods have lacked one or

more of these elements.

When the initiative began, the

Neighborhood Office often found

itself serving as a link to potential

neighborhood partners. This task has

evolved over time as the office has

established itself and staff has imple-mented tools and programs. Today,

the office’s neighborhood facilitators

serve more as coaches and consult-

ants to neighborhood organizations

and less as links between the commu-

nity and city government.

The neighborhoods that have

come forward to participate generally

have done so under two different

guises. “A neighborhood organization

may come in and not be effective,

because they’ve had the same person

in charge for a number of years, and

no one is coming out to meetings,”Kennedy said. “Or, we may have five

people come through the door who

want to organize, but they don’t know

what to do.” The more complex the

issue, the more complex the capacity

issues usually are.

This is where the facilitators come

in. Their work can be as basic as facil-

itating a meeting or helping neighbor-

hood leaders inform residents about

meeting times.

Although this investment of staff

time helps to create effective neigh-

borhood leaders and, by extension,

effective neighborhood groups, the

individualized nature of the work

means that facilitators must help to

develop new leadership whenever

someone leaves his or her post, a

phenomenon that happens frequently

in some neighborhoods.

“If you invest too much in a singleperson, and that person for whatever

reason ceases to be an effective leader,

you are nowhere, you’re back to

square one,” Kennedy said.

As a result, in recent years, a key

function of the Neighborhood Office

has been to develop organizational

capacity that is not tied to individuals.

Neighborhood College has been

Hampton’s primary tool to achieve

this, and over time, the program has

evolved to meet the needs of the city

and the program’s participants.

The original design requiredparticipants to meet twice a week for

12 weeks, a commitment that proved

to be too time- and resource- inten-

sive for everyone involved. So the city

divided the course into two parts. The

first teaches residents how to be more

effective citizens, while the second

gathers neighborhood leaders in a

classroom, provides them with skill-

building exercises, then sends them

out to apply these skills in their

neighborhoods.

FOCUS FIRST ON

CAPACITY BUILDING,

THEN DO MORE

T


23/52

By providing leaders with a forum

to work together, the city is encour-

aging them to create a peer network to

help support one another. To augment

these efforts, the city is developing a

third phase of Neighborhood College

that will focus on organizational

development, in a forum that resem-

bles the kind of training provided to a

public board or commission. Thesesessions will focus on building the

core competencies of neighborhood

organizations.

Although capacity-building efforts

are intended to help neighborhoods

accomplish their goals, the means of

building community can be an end in

itself. This is another important point.

“Working together for a common

cause often can make the biggest

difference in a neighborhood’s quality

of life,” Kennedy said.

Residents do not work together

unless they feel invested in theirneighborhoods. Indeed, one of the

hallmarks of the Neighborhoods

Initiative is the emotion with which

people both inside and outside city

government speak of it. In many

ways, the initiative has prompted in

residents new feelings about the city,

in addition to new attitudes (see story

on Buckroe Beach). ■



24/52


iven Joan Kennedy’s history as

planning director and the role of

planners in creating the program, the

initiative had a strong planning flavor

in its early years. As noted earlier, the

initial idea of the initiative was to

divide the city into neighborhoods,

pick three neighborhoods each year,

complete plans for these areas, and

then move on to the next set of neigh-borhoods until every neighborhood in

Hampton had a plan.

But as neighborhoods became

involved in the initiative (partici-

pating as pilots and with neighbor-

hood leaders serving on the steering

committee), the process broke down.

The design then was changed so that

every neighborhood that stepped

forward could participate, and many

of these neighborhoods, when given

the opportunity, came into the

process on their own terms and with

their own ideas about what theywanted to do.

This experience caused the city

to evaluate the program design, at

which time internal issues such as

the problem of how to allocate city

resources became apparent. As the

city worked on these internal issues,

several external issues came into

focus, including the need to

improve neighborhood capacity,

which led, in turn, to programs

such as Neighborhood College. The

first 10 years of the initiative can beviewed, then, as a push and pull of

internal and external issues,

coupled with the city’s responses to

these issues in the form of programs

and other interventions.

The history and evolution of the

initiative can be viewed another way

as well. In broad terms, the initiative

has performed four functions:

allocating resources, building neigh-

borhood capacity, reaching out to the

public and organizing itself.

The programs that fall under eachof these functions can be thought of

as building blocks that, together, make

up the initiative. In this way,

Neighborhood College can be

thought of as one of the primary

building blocks for building neigh-

borhood capacity, while organiza-

tional initiatives such as the

Neighborhood Task Force can be seen

as a building block or foundation for

allocating city resources. ■

INTERNAL AND

EXTERNAL

PUSH AND PULL:

AN ENDURING

THEME

G


25/52

uccess, it turns out, sometimes

hinges on small improvements.

Although some neighborhoods joined

the initiative to develop large projects

such as community centers, other

smaller and less visible improvements

often are just as important to a neigh-

borhood’s vitality. Ironically, because

of their size and the way city govern-

ment was structured, some of thesesmall improvements were among the

most difficult to carry out.

A number of neighborhoods, for

example, wanted more streetlights to

improve safety and reduce crime.

These projects qualified for the city’s

list of proposed public works projects,

but to build a small-ticket item like a

streetlight or two was not easy. The

city prioritized the project list to

maximize its limited resources, but

because the city had no way to pay for

small-ticket items unless money was

taken from larger ones, small projectswere seldom completed. Given the

city’s financial situation, this was not

going to change unless a new source

of funds was created.

In 1995, the Neighborhood Task

Force recommended that the city

establish a Neighborhood Improve-

ment Fund to support neighborhood-

level public improvements. Eventually

the fund was divided into two separate

programs: matching grants for small,

self-help projects and the larger

Neighborhood Improvement Fund for

projects that involved physical

improvements to public property.

Nearly 100 neighborhood-based

projects have received support

through these funds since their

inception.

Matching grants are available for

short-term, collaborative projects that

are consistent with the initiative’sgoals. Projects may be social in nature

or involve physical improvements to

public or private property. However,

they must be designed to increase

neighborhood capacity or reinforce a

sense of community.

Although the city does not limit

the scope of projects eligible for

matching grants, the grants

themselves are limited to $5,000. To

receive one, a neighborhood organiza-

tion must collaborate with other

groups and/or city agencies. They also

must provide matching resources(through fundraising or sweat equity)

for each dollar the city invests. In

addition to labor and cash, the city

also accepts land donations and

donations of materials and services as

part of the match.

Programs like the Neighborhood

Development Fund point to the value

and effectiveness of the

Neighborhood Task Force. City

manager Bob O’Neill established the

task force after it became apparent

that the initiative could not move

forward until city government

operated in a manner that allowed it

to serve neighborhoods – the internal

alignment issue discussed earlier.

This experience had taught city

officials a lesson. “If you have a

department with a strategic focus and

no control over resources,” like the

Neighborhood Office, “you are set upfor failure,” Joan Kennedy said.

In effect, the Neighborhood Task

Force was an internal capacity-

building tool. The task force devel-

oped a strategic plan and came up

with the idea of a Neighborhood

Commission made up of neighbor-

hood leaders who would

govern the initiative. The

task force also involved itself

in the day-to-day issues, for

example, in the way the city

was addressing neighbor-

hood blight.“Nobody in the city was

looking at neighborhood

issues proactively, so that

became the task force’s role,”

Kennedy said. Over the

years, the task force would

examine issues such as

public safety and develop other ideas

that city departments work together

to implement. ■


S

SMALL

IMPROVEMENTS

MAKE A BIG

DIFFERENCE


26/52


ay “Greater Wythe Area Plan” in

Hampton and staff roll their eyes

or sigh. And that’s before you ask the

citizens what they think. Planning

director Terry O’Neill recalls one

resident of the Greater Wythe neigh-

borhood in southwestern Hampton

who grew exasperated after many

meetings, frustrated at a process that

seemed to go on and on. Finally, heannounced to the group, “When I

first got into this, all I wanted was a

neighborhood watch.”

The Wythe plan was one of the

first plans undertaken by

Neighborhood Office, and, after eight

months of start-up time, the several-

month planning process (that in some

ways continues to the present day

and) that ensued eventually resulted

in a new neighborhood plan.

Since embarking on the Wythe

plan, the city’s approach to neigh-

borhood planning has evolved, andit helps to understand what leaders

were trying to change.

In the years before the initiative,

the Department of Planning worked

with neighborhoods to develop small

area plans, most of which focused on

land use. Deciding that this approach

was too limited, especially in neigh-

borhoods where land use was just

one of many pertinent issues, city

officials decided that neighborhood

plans drafted under the initiative

ideally would address physical,

social and civic issues.

This more holistic conceptualiza-

tion of the plan created challenges on

both sides of the table. On the city

side, many different departments

needed to be present if the plan were

to address a broad array of issues. Yet

many of these departments were not

used to planning with neighbor-

hoods, nor did they believe they hadsufficient staff capacity to be

involved at all of the meetings.

Neighborhoods, on the other hand,

were used to physical planning, and

the first issues they usually put on

the table focused on “curb and

gutter” problems, no matter what

was really happening in the neigh-

borhood. Both sides had to figure out

how to work comprehensively.

There also was an internal

coordination issue. Although the

Neighborhood Office operates

separately from the Department of

Planning, it participates in the

drafting of neighborhood plans, with

Neighborhood Office staff often

serving as plan facilitators. Despite

this organizational distance, the

neighborhood planning process

plays a key role in the initiative, for it

is through plans that neighborhoodsset priorities (which serve as the

basis for the city’s funding decisions

and provide direction to the neigh-

borhoods that create them).

Hampton has created several

templates it follows to complete

neighborhood plans. When a neigh-

borhood enters the process

mistrusting city government,

however, planners set aside these

templates and engage the neighbor-

hood’s stakeholders in designing the

process. This is an important

innovation because the partnershiprequired during the implementation

process requires that neighborhoods

be invested in their plans, and

having neighborhoods buy into the

process at the outset helps to ensure

this outcome.

Hampton, like many communities,

also struggles with representation and

communication within its planning

process. Are the stakeholders at the

table representative and do they

communicate with the broader

NEIGHBORHOOD

PLANNING:

HELPING

NEIGHBORHOODS

SHAPE THEIR FUTURE

S


27/52

community? City planners have

encouraged stakeholders to act as

information conduits to their neigh-

bors. This process has worked well in

some neighborhoods, but not in

others, as planners have discovered

that some stakeholders are not adept

at, or even interested in, involving

others from their neighborhoods.

“Many people have clamored formore (public) involvement,” Joan

Kennedy said, “but once they

themselves were involved they didn’t

see the need to involve anyone else.”

Through this experience, staff has

learned that, in the absence of effective

communication networks in neigh-

borhoods, stakeholders have a difficult

time representing their areas. This

challenge is now managed explicitly as

a part of the process design for a

neighborhood plan.

The planning process has suffered

in some neighborhoods from a non-representative mix of stakeholders.

The mix matters because the people at

the table determine the direction and

outcome of the plan. In the Newtown

neighborhood, for example, the

process began with several adult stake-

holders who told the city officials at

the table that the neighborhood did

not have many youth. Upon looking at

the data, however, the group found

that Newtown had a higher concentra-

tion of young people than the average

neighborhood in Hampton. Later,

when youth were brought into the

process, they became a major part of

the plan. Similar types of disconnects

have surfaced among stakeholders in

other neighborhoods.

As the city has worked with more

and more neighborhoods, it has

become apparent that a plan is not the

most appropriate intervention inneighborhoods that have more

immediate needs. Further, the city

does not have the staff and resources

to complete full-blown plans in every

neighborhood.

To help the Neighborhood Office

decide when a plan was appropriate,

the Neighborhood Task Force devel-

oped a “decision tree” that helps to

determine whether neighborhood

requests would be served best

through existing resources, a plan, or

other types of interventions.

Although this tool has been effective,it was never in common use, although

staff from the Neighborhood Office

apply its concepts when deciding how

best to work with neighborhoods.

Expectations also pose a challenge.

Sometimes, as the planning process

moves toward implementation, there

is confusion on what the roles of the

neighborhood and the city will be. To

clarify these roles, the city has found it

helpful to develop a memorandum of

understanding that specifies who will

contribute what during the planning

process. This memo also addresses

logistical issues and other ground

rules. Officers from the neighborhood

organizations and city staff sign these

agreements, which have helped to

clear up confusion and provide a

roadmap for implementation.

Despite all of these challenges, the

neighborhood planning process inHampton generally has been

successful. Because the City Council

has been willing to fund major

projects identified in neighborhood

plans, neighborhoods know their

hard work will be rewarded and,

consequently, they believe in the

process.

“Every process is different,”

Kennedy said. “One of the lessons we

learned over time is that a neighbor-

hood plan is a good opportunity for

people to learn about the neighbor-

hood, and what we think of as charac-

teristics of a neighborhood often are

not borne out by the data. So we as

staff look at neighborhoods through

different eyes as well.”

Work on neighborhood plans led

to other lessons as well:

■ Neighborhoods want problems with

city services solved before they are willing to take the concept of a

partnership seriously.

■ Although the details changed, the

Healthy Neighborhoods design was

on target if everybody abided by the

guiding principles.

■ Every time a new stakeholder came

to the table, the recommendations

for neighborhood plans had to be

revised before the new person would

accept them. ■


…neighborhoods

know their hard work

will be rewarded and,

consequently, they

believe in the process.


28/52


lthough the initiative tappedinto the latent demand of many

neighborhoods to work with the city

to achieve a goal (whether they

envisioned themselves as partners

with the city or not), the process of

involving neighborhoods has not

been an easy one. Although many

neighborhood leaders literally “lined

up at the door” when the

Neighborhood Office opened, not

every neighborhood was represented.

Others had to be invited to partici-

pate, and the initiative had to reachout to the community to bring them

in. Even neighborhoods that have

been involved since the initiative

began have varied in their level of

involvement over the years. Thus,

community outreach has been an

ongoing process.

Spurred by the program’s early

successes, the Neighborhood

Commission decided in 1997 to raise

the initiative’s profile through a

celebration of neighborhoods it called

REACHING OUT

TO THE

COMMUNITY:

NEIGHBORHOOD

MONTH

A


29/52

Neighborhood Week. Enthusiasmabout the idea swelled, and dozens of

volunteers stepped forward to create a

program that exceeded the expecta-

tions of many. However, it was

tremendously difficult to make all of

the activities happen within one

week. The basic concept of

Neighborhood Week was a good one,

however, and the event was later

expanded into Neighborhood Month.

Neighborhood Month is a month

long celebration of unity and neigh-

borhood pride hosted by theHampton Neighborhood Commission.

Neighborhoods, as the brochure

states, “are a cause for celebration

because not only are they the ‘Heart

of Hampton’ but where we live,

work, and play.” Events include

open houses, neighborhood yard

sales, community picnics, multicul-

tural festivals, community cleanups,

marathons, and even a trip to

the national Neighborhoods USA

conference. ■



30/52


s the Neighborhoods Initiative

enters its second decade, the

first 10 years of experience has

yielded many lessons about collabo-

rating with neighborhoods, both

positive and negative.

On the plus side:

■ Decisions on allocating city resources

are better.

■ Neighborhoods that participate in

the process make sure that projects

are implemented and take responsi-

bility for that implementation.

■ Neighborhood plans are more

comprehensive and relate better to

what people in neighborhoods

really care about.

■ Neighborhood plans have a better

chance of being implemented.

However:

■ The process is messy.

■ The city loses some control over the

process.

■ The process is resource intensive.

■ The process takes more time than

a process without as much public

participation.

“These community involvement

processes, especially in neighbor-

hoods, are not just a method to seek

public involvement; they actually

become part of the process of

building and sustaining a sense of

community in neighborhoods,” said

Joan Kennedy. “People get to know

and understand their neighbors; they

learn and come to care about theirneighborhood; they start to work on

things together; they become a

community instead of just people

who happen to live in the same area

of the city.”

Communities that want to emulate

Hampton’s model still must

customize its elements to their situa-

tion, said former city manager Bob

O’Neill, who has studied the issue

nationally and who applied the

principles of reinventing government

to Fairfax County, Virginia after

leaving Hampton in 1997.“Conceptually, this approach is

broad enough to apply, but there is no

set of universal techniques that work

in a cookie-cutter fashion,” he said.

“What a neighborhood strategy looks

like has a lot to do with a city’s neigh-

borhoods, culture and the level of

trust in neighborhoods among polit-

ical leaders.

“People want to make the places

where they live better,” O’Neill said.

“When you give them an opportunity

to make a contribution, they are

willing to do it.”

Terry O’Neill, the city’s planning

director, said the relationships built

by the initiative have allowed city

officials to “know what’s between

the words” written in neighborhood

plans.

“The initiative has done a great

deal to improve relations with the

community,” O’Neill said. “We truly

believe we are making far better

decisions because we have a much

better sense of the community.”

A DECADE OF

LESSONS LEARNED

A

“People want to

make the places

where they live

better… give them

an opportunity to

make a contribution,

they are willing

to do it.”

— BOB O’NEILL FORMER CITY MANAGER


31/52

Terry O’Neill said Hampton was

fortunate to have, from the outset,

many community leaders who under-

stood and valued collaboration.

“Without those individuals partici-pating, I’m not sure we could have

sustained” the initiative, he said.

The program, in turn, has helped

to spawn a network that allows

officials to know whom to call when

issues arise. And before they make a

call, a relationship has already been

forged, trust exists and both sides

understand they can give their honest

opinions, discuss their viewpoints

quickly and reach an understanding,

Terry O’Neill said.

“It really is of immense value,” he

said.

Terry O’Neill credits the leadership

of Mayor James Eason, who

supported the program when it was just a concept, and Bob O’Neill, who

as city manager was willing to take

chances to make it work. They helped

to instill within city government the

willingness to look at problems

creatively and were able to foster

among city employees a trust that

they could find answers to the issues

at hand.

These efforts have embedded in

Hampton the spirit of collaboration as

a fundamental value. “It is so

immersed, there’s no way to stop it,”

Terry O’Neill said.

Neighborhoods now expect high

level of interaction from city govern-

ment and are willing to demand it if it

does not happen.

As the city and its neighborhoods

look toward the future, Kennedy and

others see the initiative growing

broader , by having every area of thecity represented by an active and

effective neighborhood-serving

organization, and deeper , by getting

all neighborhoods to have defined

objectives as well as plans to make

measurable progress in meeting them.

Regardless how it proceeds, the

initiative is in Hampton to stay.

Assistant city manager Mike

Monteith believes the initiative would

continue to function even if he, Joan

Kennedy and other key leaders were

to leave the city.

“It may change form and mighteven take a step backwards, but I

think (if the city were to take another

approach), there would be enough

uncomfortableness with the way the

city did business that the City Council

would eventually wonder why they

were working a lot harder than they

used to, and something would come

forward to fill that gap,” Monteith

said. “The community would demand

to be involved.” ■



32/52

Y.H. THOMAS:

THE MAGICAL POINT OF INTERVENTION


33/52

Y.H. THOMAS • A-1

o understand the sense of

ownership and pride that the

volunteers at the Y.H. Thomas

Community Center have

for their facility, consider

ERNIE FERGUSON. Every

weekday for almost seven

years, Ferguson, 68, who is

retired, has served as facili-

ties manager, workingmorning, noon and night,

without receiving so much

as a penny for his time.

His fellow volunteers

refer to him as “Mr. Ferguson,” and,

although they log many hours

themselv

learning from neighborhoods: the story of the hampton initiative, 1993-2003

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