"Planning is one thing, but reaching consensus is a whole different animal. So when the Walker Park Neighborhood Master Plan was met with general approval by citizens last week, the city's planners certainly must have felt they had a major accomplishment under their belt..."My concern about this very attractive master plan is that it is truly just a vision; none of it is guaranteed. The treelined streets and boulevards, the Jefferson square, the park, the sidewalks, the community gardens and mixed income housing will happen only if citizens lean on politicians from now until the drawings become the reality. Rather than just saying the deed is done, we need to understand we have few policies in place that actually require the city to create citizens' visions upon the existing infrastructure. To make things happen, we have to point fingers and take names and persist through time for results.
"Citizens can begin this persistence process by testing the candidates for mayor and aldermen positions before next year's elections about what, if any, steps they will take toward implementation of this vision. We, and they, must understand that plans - and elections - are merely the beginning, not the end, of what we want."
--Fran Alexander, "Back to the Future," Northwest Arkansas Times
No comments:
Post a Comment