The New Urban Leaders
Publication Year: 2001
Some of today's best urban leaders don't work for the government they can be found in nonprofit organizations that serve the working class and poor populations. Based on interviews conducted in major cities including Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, San Francisco, Washington D.C., and New York, this study focuses on exceptional leaders who have developed effective solutions to the complex problems of our inner cities, including education, economic development, and community safety. The book includes profiles of innovators such as Robert Woodson, founder of the Washington, D.C. based National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, whose work on affordable housing, gang violence, and black entrepreneurship earned a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (the "genius" award); MacArthur Fellowship and Heinz Prize winner Bob Moses, founder of the Algebra Project that prepares low-income students for joining today's technology-dominated workforce; Rheedlen Center head Geoff Canada, who received the Heinz Prize for his "anti-violence among youth" work; and Reverend Eugene Rivers, one of the founders of the Ten-Point Coalition that helped to reduce gang violence in Boston. The New Urban Leadership investigates how and why expert problem solvers chose their career paths, what qualities make them especially successful in their work, and the methods they use to train the next generation of urban leaders.
Published by: Brookings Institution Press
Title Page
Copyright Page
Foreword
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pp. v-vi
This book focuses on extraordinary individuals who both recognized and embraced the responsibility to change the plight of urban America. Over the past four decades, the United States has experienced a dramatic shift in the handling of urban policies. ...
Table of Contents
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pp. vii-viii
Preface
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pp. ix-xii
Few of the conditions that affect the urban poor are the result of their own conscious choices. In the case of those who are both poor and members of racial minority groups, housing, education, and employment opportunities are further limited by forces largely beyond their control. ...
Chapter One: The Legacy of the Past
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pp. 1-12
The leaders profiled in this book are trying to fill the void created by the demise of programs arising from the Civil Rights movement and the Johnson-era War on Poverty. The Civil Rights movement offered hope and inspiration, especially to African Americans in the Deep South who were politically disfranchised ...
Part One: On Becoming a New Urban Leader
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pp. 13-
Chapter Two: Kent Amos
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pp. 15-26
Our task is to transform rundown neighborhoods into revitalized neighborhoods. We have new windows where boards used to be. We have new fencing where no fencing used to be. We have paint where peeling used to be. We have clean walls where graffiti used to be. . . . We have hope where despair used to be. ...
Chapter Three: Robert Moses
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pp. 27-32
The activist career of Robert Parris “Bob” Moses began during the era of traditional civil rights leadership and continues to the present day.1 By 2000, at age sixty-five, Moses had spent his entire career working to improve the conditions of poor people in the nation’s major cities and rural areas. ...
Chapter Four: Eugene Rivers
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pp. 33-42
Eugene Rivers is one of the founders of Boston’s Ten-Point Coalition, which was organized as a response to increased gang violence in the Roxbury and Dorchester communities.1 The Ten-Point Coalition is an ecumenical group of street ministers that formed immediately after what came to be known as the Morning Star attack. ...
Chapter Five: Defining Moments and Other Influences
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pp. 43-58
A career as an agent of social change, in the tradition of these transformative leaders, requires a special type of individual: one willing to take extraordinary risks by pursuing change in the midst of often formidable opposition. Many people who go into these careers have a clear sense of mission, an approach that offsets ...
Part Two: Strategies and Vision
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pp. 59-
Chapter Six: The Internal Change Strategy
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pp. 61-98
The approach of the new urban leaders to the problems of the black urban underclass differs from that of the older generation of black leaders, whose work concentrated on stemming the effects of white racial prejudice. Many in the younger generation, on the other hand, believe that these problems are manifestations ...
Chapter Seven: Promising Practices: Four Case Studies
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pp. 99-126
Despite the obstacles the new urban leaders face, there are some success stories that give great reason for optimism. The four case studies described below were designed to have a long-term impact and to produce systemic change. They include a program to detoxify pregnant women so they can deliver drug-free babies ...
Chapter Eight: Looking to the Future
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pp. 127-136
The new urban leaders face a number of challenges as their organizations age and as they themselves must think of retiring from center stage. To carry on their work into the future, a number of issues must be addressed. ...
Notes
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pp. 137-146
Index
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pp. 147-152
E-ISBN-13: 9780815798682
E-ISBN-10: 0815798687
Page Count: 200
Publication Year: 2001
