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C H A P T E R 1 Promise of University-Community Partnerships Collaborative processes, or bottom-up approaches, have not been tried extensively. When tried, many have not truly been bottom-up. One thing that distinguishes a bottom-up approach from a top-down approach is the scope of the project and sources of funds. Most of the failed, top-down approaches have employed large amounts of federal money and minimal local investment and have been geographically extensive, covering large sections of cities or regions. Bottom-up strategies are narrowly focused from an areal perspective, often concentrating on a single neighborhood or part of a neighborhood. While seed money may come from a federal program, there is usually a significant local investment component (25% or more), which gives local governments, nonprofits , and neighborhood groups more ownership of the program and its processes. Neighborhood residents must, in concert with others in the community, reach out and form partnerships with those who can help revitalize their neighborhood . A broad-based coalition must be assembled to address problems; we can no longer be categorical in our approach. The categorical grant programs of the past have not been as effective as their developers had hoped. A holistic approach is required. The individuals working in the coalition must believe that they have the power to make a difference and to find, through themselves or their partners, people who can wield the necessary power to carry out their plans. Finally, these plans must be developed and carried out at the lowest level. If there is not a significant commitment by all parties, especially residents, then the effort will fail. If the plans are being directed from afar, then history shows that change will be either fleeting or non-existent. Neighborhood planners working within the confines of an overall city plan are under a tremendous amount of pressure to remake the neighborhoods that comprise the cities. Attractive, safe, desirable, convenient neighborhoods in conjunction with economic opportunities and residents who can seize them may be the only things that can stem the tide of emigration from the cities to 1 suburbia. Scholars almost forty years ago were not optimistic about the future of cities. According to Dahl (1967): Our cities are not merely non-cities, they are anti-cities—mean, ugly, gross, banal, inconvenient, hazardous, formless, incoherent, unfit for human living, deserts from which a family flees to the greener hinterlands as soon as job and income permit, yet deserts growing so rapidly outward that the open green space to which the family escapes soon shrinks to an oasis and then it too turns to a desert. (p. 964) Inner-city communities have severe problems with crime, homelessness, joblessness, illiteracy, drugs, and a host of other challenges. One might have thought that graduates from our outstanding professional schools, armed with the research of our social scientists, could have done more to help our government agencies and community organizations reduce the incidence of poverty, illiteracy, and stunted opportunity. Since these results have not occurred, it is fair to ask whether our universities are doing all that they can and should to help America surmount the obstacles that threaten to sap its economic strength and blight the lives of its people (Bok 1990, p. 6). J. Martin Klotsche, former chancellor of the University of WisconsinMilwaukee , provides an appropriate frame of reference for this discussion of university involvement in the community. Klotsche (1966) writes: Our society is irretrievably urban. Since our cities are here to stay, the time is at hand to take a new look at them. It is urgent that a major effort be made to reshape them. This will require serious reflection, and positive action. In all of these matters the urban university can play a central role. It can, in fact, become the single most important force in the re-creation of our cities. (p. 128) Several cities, acting as laboratories of innovation, have proven programs that help revitalize inner-city neighborhoods. Universities can play important roles in partnership with the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. As the late Ernest Boyer (1990) noted, “[T]he work of the academy must relate to the world beyond the campus” (p. 75). Stukel (1994) states: The ideal of the urban university rolling up its sleeves and getting involved in urban affairs will spread because it is a tremendous opportunity to deal with real issues—crime, taxes, the economy, and elementary and secondary education—the issues that are on people...

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