Five East Side neighborhoods will be announced as finalists for a pilot demonstration project
On Monday, February 26, in the M&T Auditorium of the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo (955 Main Street), a symposium will be held to inform attendees about the East Side Neighborhood Transformation Project. This project is considered “a new approach to neighborhood development that is geared toward radically transforming neighborhoods on the Black East Side.”
For far too long, the city’s East Side has been relatively stagnant when it comes to sweeping positive change. Yes, there has been some residential infill in various pockets of the East Side, though nothing transformational in scope. At the same time, as development begins to creep into the East Side, there are those who are worried about the spread of gentrification. On one hand, there is still stagnation. On the other hand, there are fears that residents will be displaced from their neighborhoods. So what is the answer?
In 2021 a study (The Harder We Run: The State of Black Buffalo in 1990 and the Present) was conducted by Henry-Louis Taylor Jr., PhD, professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning in the UB School of Architecture and Planning, director of the Center for Urban Studies and associate director of UB’s Community Health Equity Research Institute. Following the study, Taylor issued a report late last year – How We Change the Black East Side: A Neighborhood Planning and Development Framework. The report was at the behest of Buffalo Center for Health Equity, who asked for a conceptual framework for a neighborhood demonstration project.
The upcoming symposium – How to transform the neighborhoods of Buffalo’s Black East Side – will delve into the study, the report, and five census tracts that have been selected as finalists for the first pilot neighborhood, to be announced. This symposium promises to not only be informative – it also sets out to outline some very real possibilities for tangible positive change. What does a healthy neighborhood look like, and what impact does it have on its residents?
The symposium will be followed by additional research on the neighborhoods selected as finalists. That research will be submitted to a community advisory group, which will solicit community support, in order to select the first East Side neighborhood to undergo transformation. The hope would be to create a sustainable project that could be replicated in other East Side neighborhoods.
The symposium will help identify community and city partners, as well as potential funders.
“We are hosting the event at the Jacobs School to stress that neighborhood development is interlocked with the struggle to improve health outcomes in the Black community,” says Taylor, who explains that the ultimate goal of the pilot neighborhood project is to comprehensively address the social determinants of health. “We want to illustrate that the social determinants of health are rooted in the underdeveloped neighborhoods where people live. Therefore, we cannot eliminate health disparities and inequities without transforming the neighborhoods where Black people live. Urban health and neighborhoods are interconnected.”
The symposium is open to Community partners, UB faculty, staff and students, and members of the public.
Panelists include Buffalo Common Council member Rasheed N.C. Wyatt, who represents the University District; Tim Murphy, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor and director, UB’s Community Health Equity Research Institute; Athena Mutua, Floyd H. and Hilda L. Hurst Faculty Scholar in the School of Law; and Mike Lamb, PhD, environmental psychologist and director of surgical education in the Department of Surgery in the Jacobs School.
Allison Brashear, MD, vice president for health sciences and dean of the Jacobs School, and Pastor James Giles, president and CEO of Back to Basics Ministries Inc., will make opening remarks.
When and Where: 6-8 p.m. Monday, February 26, in the M&T Auditorium of the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at UB, 955 Main Street, Buffalo.
The event is free and open to the public. Register at this link.