Models, Processes for City and Neighborhood District Economic Development
Business Improvement District formation… BIDs in California. BID formation is generally difficult to pull through, needs strong community backing and leadership, and needs to happen early in the organizing and planning process. I need to do more research.
The Main Street Approach…the model. I attended the Feb. 28 networking meeting in Davis, CA specific to Main Street initiatives in California. It seems like a comprehensive, common-sense model that is not necessarily innovative, except through its foundation in historic preservation. Is the Main Street initiative successful in both urban city and rural small-town settings? Is it more successful in the rural small-town setting than in the urban city setting?
The Fruitvale District in Oakland, CA is a community economic development model we are currently researching as a feasible guide for the planning of Bayview/Hunters Point in San Francisco. I met Darlene Rios-Drapkin, currently VP of the Board of Directors for California Main Street Alliance, and discussed business attraction and development in Fruitvale (she was Manager of the Fruitvale Main Street Program). Among the many projects she has catalyzed, Rios-Drapkin started the Dios de Los Muertos festival that now attracts thousands and thousands of people to Oakland each year to shop at the local businesses, to revel in the festivities, and to further look upon Fruitvale as a true destination point and place of opportunity. I liked that Rios-Drapkin began the process of development by explaining and understanding it through Maslo’s Hierarchy of Needs.