In the fall of 2010, The Community Group (TCG), a community organization, received a federal planning grant to create the Arlington Community of Excellence (ACE). The ACE is a Promise Neighborhood, a continuum of “cradle-through-college-to-career” solutions for children and youth to lift them out of poverty. The Promise Neighborhood theory of change holds that a focus on the educational outcomes is not enough; transformation requires the integration and improvement of a wide range of services that touch children’s lives. In other words, the ACE requires an all‐hands‐on‐deck approach to achieve the transformation it envisions. The City of Lawrence Community Development Department’s (CDD’s) long-standing goal to improve the quality of life in the city is aligned with the ACE vision. The CDD has worked to create opportunity in the city’s most vulnerable communities through its planning functions, but also by way of supporting local community development initiatives. Thus the City has a critical role to play in the realization of the ACE. With this manual, MIT@Lawrence provides information, as well as proposes ideas and concrete next steps, on how the City can support the realization of the ACE’s stated goals.
The manual’s areas of focus are: vacant land inventory and analysis, illegal dumping and banned waste, and health food access.
Lawrence Practicum Draft Report (Fall 2011)