[Penn Loh, 11/8/19]
Background
From early July through mid-August 2019, the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI) hired 10 youth leaders and supported them to conduct their own community action research project related to the ongoing Upham’s Corner Implementation planning process. This project was funded in part by a grant from the Corporation for National and Community Service to DSNI and the Tufts University Department of Urban & Environmental Policy & Planning (UEP) to explore how civic engagement can strengthen community capacity for control over land use and economic development in the neighborhood.
The Upham’s Corner Implementation project began in mid-2017 and is co-facilitated by DSNI and the City of Boston. It builds on years of planning and visioning and hopes to develop several key sites to catalyze development of an arts and innovation district and create economic opportunities for existing residents while preventing displacement. DSNI’s community land trust owns one of the key sites, a former bank building now known as the Dudley Neighbors Inc. Community Building (DNICB). Other redevelopment sites owned by the City include the historic Strand Theater, a bank building, and a municipal parking lot.
As of summer 2019, the City and DSNI had conducted a series of community meetings and engagement, guided by a multi-stakeholder advisory group, to inform the drafting of requests for proposals (RFP) for developers. While DSNI engaged ~100 youth in developing vision and perspectives on Upham’s Corner redevelopment during 2018, there was acknowledgement at a March 2019 community meeting that “there was little youth input into this RFP and that is something the city and DNI would like to improve upon.”
DSNI’s Arts and Culture Manager Ramona Alexander supervised the summer program, and DSNI hired a former youth leader, Jalela Howard, as the summer youth coordinator. The youth community action research was supported by Minnie McMahon, Operations Manager for DSNI’s Land Trust, Kalamu Kieta, DSNI’s Arts Organizer, and the Tufts UEP team. Nine of the ten youth were in paid summer positions, while the other was a volunteer. They worked from July 1 to August 16, spending Tuesdays and Thursdays at DSNI and the other days in training with the City School’s Summer Leadership Program.
Youth Team
The 10 youth are 15-16 years old and include 6 girls and 4 boys. Four are of Cape Verdean descent, five are Black, and one is Latino. Five are from the Dudley neighborhood, including two who were elected to the DSNI board at the beginning of the summer. The others come to the program from the City School, a summer leadership program located in Upham’s Corner.
Process and Activities
The six-week youth program began with a series of trainings to orient the youth. These included an introduction to community action research and research ethics. The youth created their own definition of community action research: learning and information about the community in order to understand and fix the problems. By completing a 1-hour segment on research ethics, the youth became members of the research team certified by the Tufts University Institutional Research Board. They also conducted interviews with each other in order to practice formulating questions and recording data.
The orientation period also included learning more about the history of DSNI and development in Upham’s Corner. Youth discussed the concept “development without displacement” and about gentrification and its impacts. The facilitation team led a walk through Upham’s Corner of the key redevelopment sites. Though the youth were not excited to walk in the mid-day summer heat, they did become energized when they went into the DNICB. Inside this building owned by DSNI’s land trust, the youth were asked to envision what they might want to see in this space. Youth were then introduced to the Upham’s Corner Implementation process and led through some of the visioning workshops that had already been conducted in the community and given a chance to absorb and discuss some of the results of the process so far.
The second half of the summer was dedicated to supporting the youth to develop their collective vision for DNICB and then design and implement a workshop to share that vision. The youth discussed their overall goals for the building and decided that they wanted a welcoming, accessible, and inclusive space for young people that is supportive of them to live health lives and become innovators. They brainstormed a wide range of ideas for how the building could be used, including a roller rink, culinary arts programs to teach cooking and healthy eating, homeless shelter, corner store, and a rooftop vegetable garden. In small groups, they sketched out floor plans and built cardboard models of what the building could look like. These multiple ways to engage creativity helped all the youth to participate more meaningfully, especially the ones who were more quiet in group discussions.
Their summer culminated in a workshop that they designed to showcase their visions and activate the space. After the facilitation team showed the youth an example of activation — turning the bank vault into a “dance club” with some lighting and music – the youth team got to work figuring out how to bring the space to life and give people an experience of what the space could look and feel like. They turned the first floor of the building into three distinct spaces: a bowling alley and arcade, a Zen garden with koi pond, and a movie theater/café.
On August 13, the youth welcomed about 15 community members to their workshop. They started with lunch and introductions and then walked the participants through the spaces they created. Not only did they explain their vision, but they invited folks to engage with the space. With duct tape, a kick ball, and soda bottles, a functioning bowling alley came to life. The youth built a koi pond out of a plastic baby pool, complete with cardboard fish and a fishing pole with a magnet hook. In the theater, the youth handed out popcorn and candy and invited the guests to sit down and enjoy a showing of the movie Moana.
Learnings
- Use of the arts and creative place-making are not only effective methods to bring young people into the planning process, but are generative of new ideas and visions. We found that the youth went from learning mode and feeling like they were being taught to taking ownership of planning, after we gave them materials to sketch and build out their ideas.
- Activation of space is a fun and effective way of engaging people to imagine possibilities.
- Despite the summer youth program being very short, only six weeks, the DSNI youth team achieved an impressive amount of learning about the redevelopment process and developed visions and ideas that can be built on in the future. The fact that half of the youth are immediate neighborhood residents, including two who are on the DSNI board, means that there are ways that the youth vision can continue to be impactful on the redevelopment process.
- Youth require a range of support and attention to their development. The City School’s Summer Leadership Program provided a core level of training on social justice issues and leadership. But DSNI’s staff also did a lot of one-on-one mentoring, matching youth with adult staff to have lunches, and interpersonal group work. The group developed norms and worked through conflicts to become a high performing team. Individual youth learned how to make space and take space when appropriate. Finally, some youth were facing difficult situations outside of the program, which needed to be acknowledged and supported.
- Action research needs to be owned by the group doing the research. As facilitators, we can provide information and direction, but cannot predetermine how the group will define their questions and their methods.
