Demoralizing image of urban community identity

Within urban ghettos, the vacant lots, boarded-up buildings and general deterioration have given rise to demoralizing images of the community's total decay, which are reinforced by the contrast between such conditions and the architectural evidence of former grandeur. When these images are projected within the community and to the larger metropolitan area, they are taken to indicate that nobody can "make it" in such a community, nothing good ever happens there, and nothing good can ever happen there in the future.

This "story", told in conversation and dramatized in rampant vandalism, becomes a significant block to any cooperative efforts at development and contributes to negligence and destruction within the community. Publicity concerning plans, meetings or proposed projects is greeted with scepticism born from years of experiencing inner city programmes that come and go. Residents are tired of paper promises and lucid about the extent of reformulation required to rebuild their community, doubting that such rebuilding will ever occur. Nothing less than a rapid, massive physical demonstration of community rehabilitation will release residents from the habitual "story" and permit them to spread the image of their ghetto neighbourhood as a worthy place in which to expend the creative efforts of themselves and of others.