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For the last ten years, I've managed the Northside Leadership Conference, which is a coalition
of fifteen community groups of the Northside.
The Civic Council - and, like I said, I work with neighborhoods all over - one of the incredible
strengths of the Civic Council is that we never settled for second best.
We're not going to take this development because "Well, it's better than nothing."
Never once in the years I've been here have we settled.
But, aside from the physical, I think it is that collection of people that this place
has attracted and it's welcom[ing] for all kinds of people.
And that, by the way, goes back a hundred and some years.
I mean, you know, in Victorian times, this neighborhood had Jewish families living here
that were excluded in a lot of other places, it had free, land-owning African Americans
- who owned their homes - that was an incredible rarity in the 1890s but, in this neighborhood,
there were home owners who were African American and yet, you also had the millionaires, the
wealthiest of them all, all in the same little ten square blocks.
So this was a weird place in terms of the mix of people a hundred and some years ago
and, happily, it is still this weird and welcoming place.
It's like, this neighborhood became more diverse racially as it increased in value which is
really unusual.
Most places, when the economics go up, the diversity numbers go the other direction - this
one didn't, it was, it created opportunities and it was open to everybody.
Frankly, if you were gonna be a good neighbor, if you were going to work and help this neighborhood
and if you were going to take care of an old house, dang-gone-it, we wanted ya.
Didn't, none of the rest of the stuff mattered.
What your party was, what your, you know, *** orientation was, whether you were old
or young, nothin' mattered.
The question was: "Okay, do you like old houses and are you willing to help out?" and that
was it, those were are criteria.
I think that is the greatest accomplishment of this place: That it's been that open and
welcoming.
Now, by the way, put aluminum siding on something or an aluminum screen door, we're gonna come
down on ya about it.
There's a limit to diversity, okay.
But, yeah, the other stuff, we don't care about that but, yeah, you do something
rotten to your Victorian house, we're gonna be all over you.