Tours Highlight Neighborhood Assets, History

From Neighborhood Leader, Spring 2006 issue

On two Saturdays in March, 36 grassroots leaders took part in what has become a rite of passage for participants in Neighborhood Leadership Cleveland: neighborhood tours. The two half-day tours covered close to a dozen Cleveland neighborhoods and revealed a community rich in history and assets.

Neighborhood tours reinforce several of the most important lessons that lie at the heart of Neighborhood Leadership Cleveland.

One: Leadership requires teamwork and collaboration. NLC participants work in teams to organize and guide the tours of their own neighborhoods. They must divide research tasks and agree on a tour route.

Marie Jones, new to the Collinwood area, enjoyed working with longtime residents George Neff and Tim Davis, as well as Tangela Woods of neighboring Euclid. “Appreciating what people bring to the team is important,” Jones emphasizes.

Two: Identify neighborhood assets. Too often policy makers and social service providers define Greater Cleveland’s neighborhoods in terms of needs and deficiencies. The NLC curriculum rejects that approach and encourages grassroots leaders to identify and build on the assets of their neighborhoods. Neighborhood tours showcase those assets.

Central resident Maxine Tutstone embraces the asset-based approach. “A lot of people just focus on the negatives. I’m interested in what causes the negatives to change.” Bruce Martin of East Cleveland found inspiration in discovering new treasures. “This class is helping me stay here in the Cleveland area,” he says.

Lesson Three: Learn from history. The history of Greater Cleveland’s neighborhoods is a history of change. As this year’s tour participants found out, Cleveland’s neighborhoods have experienced dramatic changes over the past 100 years—economic changes, demographic changes, and changes to the physical environment.

The Buckeye neighborhood was once home to one of the largest Hungarian populations in the world. Several of the structures along Glenville’s “Church Row” were actually built as synagogues. Some of the most dangerous and rundown housing projects in Cleveland once stood where vast blocks of new homes now herald a new era in Central.

The history lesson was not lost on Erik Johnson of Old Brooklyn. “I’m really fascinated by the fact that Cleveland was booming at one time. We’re struggling to define ourselves now, but I really believe that Cleveland has the potential to become a major player in the economic development of Ohio and of the country.”

Lesson Four: Break down barriers between people. Stereotypes thrive amidst ignorance. NLC combats that ignorance by bringing together the most diverse group of participants of any leadership program in Greater Cleveland. Through the neighborhood tours, participants get a firsthand look at unfamiliar neighborhoods from the perspective of grassroots leaders who live in and care about those neighborhoods.

For Deitri Villarreal of Cleveland Heights, the tour of Collinwood’s lakeshore area opened her eyes. “I had never seen that part of Collinwood before. When you think ‘Collinwood,’ you kind of think negatively. So it’s nice to see the positive side of it.” Abdul Ameen of Fairview Park echoed those sentiments: “I didn’t know it was that nice. I like to see that there are communities in Cleveland that are as nice as the suburbs.”

Grassroots leaders know that their neighborhoods face many real and difficult challenges. They enroll in Neighborhood Leadership Cleveland because they have deep roots in their communities and want to improve the quality of life in their neighborhoods. The neighborhood tours serve as reminder of why that is a battle worth fighting.