Chair Williams asks SIAP to explain civic clusters and why Council should care
Chair asks for more detail on civic clusters; Stern says they are lower-income neighborhoods with more cultural assets than expected, and Seifert explains the 'build from strength' model to support nearby vulnerable neighborhoods.
Okay.
So your testimony also calls attention to civic clusters.
If you could just explain a little bit more about what that is and why should the city council take an interest in civic clusters?
So, you know, in the diagram I pointed to earlier in my testimony, you can see civic clusters are, in a sense, lower income neighborhoods that have lots more cultural assets than we would predict.
The reason we think they're important is because
We think every lower income neighborhood ideally could become a civic cluster.
And so we've sort of been held.
And so there's two parts of that.
One is that it's easy because it's very easy to miss them because they are lower income neighborhoods.
And secondly, because we think if you change strategic policies, you could build out to more of them.
Build from strength.
You take the civic cluster, you look at who's next to it.
Our community development friends, building from strength.
They're taking the stronger, they're in Baltimore, they're in Philadelphia, they're all over the country.
Build from strength, and the strong ones are like a civic cluster.
They're not strong compared to the World Center, you know, Broadway's, but you build out from that.
Build from strength to the more vulnerable neighborhoods nearby.