A decrease in gang-related crime and investment in downtown real estate are among the tangible returns on a collective vision for a better Erie.
A powerful malaise long lingered in Erie's civic and political culture, a collective habit of meeting the causes and signs of Erie's economic and physical decline largely with resignation. Of thinking small. Looking backward. Accepting our fate.
Embedded in that was something of a collective inferiority complex, a notion that things were the best that Erie could expect. There was also a gradual atrophying of our communal spirit, our shared vision, rooted in the depth of loss.
We might have noticed that swaths of Erie were sinking into blight and generational poverty. Too many of us who were able wrote that off as someone else's problem.
Now and then some business or civic coalition would make the case for embracing change and try to rally the community to reach for bigger and better things. But those efforts never gained enough traction to really change the game, partly because of deep-seated doubts that it could be changed. The moment never came.
Until it did. It's here, Erie. This is our shot.
It stirred first in the nonprofit sector. At the heart of that nascent awakening was a simple but profound notion: The way things are, the direction they're going, is not good enough for Erie and its people. We're not going to just live with it. We deserve better.
Those embracing and fanning that impulse sometimes struggled with how to go about it. But this time the scale and complexity of Erie's problems didn't overwhelm the resolve and will to solve them, to make the future better than the present.
How to start fighting Erie's entrenched poverty? By starting — forming Erie Together and convening people from throughout the community to start figuring it out.
What to do about to do about rising violence in Erie, especially the plague of young men gunning each other down on the streets in pursuit of vengeance or some twisted notion of respect? Assemble a coalition of law enforcement, social service agencies and other stakeholders under the umbrella of Unified Erie. And root their collective efforts in hard data on what was driving the violence and what would work to combat it, not in hunches or tweaking what wasn't working.
How to jump-start downtown Erie's real estate market and strengthen the urban core's population base as envisioned by the Erie Refocused comprehensive plan? Have Erie Insurance, the region's biggest corporate player, take the point on forming the Erie Downtown Development Corp. and assembling unprecedented amounts of private capital to focus on long-term renewal rather than a quick return.
How to retool a passive, reactive, siloed City Hall to be more nimble, focused and collaborative? Elect a mayor who gets it from the impressive field of candidates who stepped forward.
Pieces of the plans and efforts coming together now stretch back a decade or more. But the energy, focus and action centered around all of the above started to catalyze and quicken in 2016.
This newspaper launched its Erie Next initiative that January and committed a lot of resources going forward to coverage, commentary and community dialogue focused on change, progress and accountability. Our newsroom pushes on those themes every day.
That spring, the CVB firm delivered Erie Refocused, along with lead consultant Charles Buki's unvarnished and galvanizing assessment of why Erie for so long had not managed to rouse itself to action. Buki painted a grim picture of Erie's future, absent major change, a future that can be seen in the rock-bottom rubble of Flint, Michigan, or Gary, Indiana.
Buki punctuated his call to action that fall in blunt advice, paraphrased here to keep it G-rated, delivered to an audience of movers and shakers at the Jefferson Educational Society: Stop doing stupid stuff. The unedited version caught on in Erie's civic lexicon.
In this space a year ago, we characterized 2017 as a watershed as a new future for a better Erie came into focus. The year that's now ending delivered tangible returns on that vision.
Newly sworn-in Mayor Joe Schember moved swiftly to begin transforming City Hall into a strikingly more energetic, outward-facing and inclusive engine for mobilizing change. Schember and his team also at last took Erie Refocused to the people, including those in some of Erie's hardest-pressed neighborhoods, in the process listening more than they talked.
The EDDC established its headquarters downtown, began experimenting with quick-hit events and made its first big property purchase along State Street and North Park Row. Unified Erie documented a sharp drop in gang-related violence at its five-year mark.
The Erie School District, after sweeping public input from throughout the community, launched a strategic plan for improving student performance and a program to improve the district's neglected physical plant.
The Erie Innovation District recruited digital start-ups to its accelerator in downtown Erie and some of them committed to putting down roots here.
The United Way of Erie County retooled its funding framework to focus squarely on the root causes of poverty in a disciplined and sustained fashion. That focus centers on the establishment of community schools, with embedded services and support to remove impediments to children's learning.
The Erie Community Foundation put in place a five-year, $30 million funding plan to meet community needs and seed more transformational change.
Schember and a variety of community partners acted swiftly to position Erie at the national forefront of efforts to attract major community investment via the federal Opportunity Zones tax incentives in low-income tracts in the city.
And all the while, groups of residents were mobilizing for action. The Bayfront East Side Taskforce, Our West Bayfront, the Eastside Grassroots Coalition and ServErie each is pursuing an agenda to improve its part of the city.
There have been many other points of light, to borrow a phrase from the late President George H.W. Bush. The latest are cataloged in our Erie Next quarterly review on the Viewpoint page.
The challenge in the year to come, and those that follow, is to build on everything in play, align those efforts toward common goals, and call to account those who would backtrack into political mischief, turf battles, reflexive negativity or flagging resolve. Who would keep doing stupid stuff.
And make no mistake. The forces of decline remain active and potent. Some inside and outside government cling to bad habits, worn-out assumptions and narrow views. They must be persuaded, resisted or defeated.
As evidenced by the city of Erie's budget troubles, Erie and the region struggle still with our Rust Belt legacy and decades of drift and decline. We can't allow that legacy to define our community or dictate its future.
We're in this together. Keeping that firmly in focus will take us where we need to go.
What's next, Erie? Whatever we, all of us, make happen.
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