LOVE Outcomes
Great Places organizes investments within each Great Place into four outcome areas— livability, opportunity, vitality and education (LOVE). Together, investments in these four areas will tangibly elevate the people, institutions and places at the “heart” of each selected place.
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The following is a description of each outcome area, along with examples of initiatives that are similar to the ones integrated into the revitalization plans of each Great Place.
Livability:
By leveraging existing assets of many kinds, healthy neighborhoods are being created in which residents have daily access to art, nature, recreation and beauty.
Livability includes the natural and cultural amenities that will improve the health and well-being of residents and make their neighborhood more attractive to all stakeholders. These elements include the character, creativity, and condition of natural and built environments. Desirable amenities include pedestrian and bicycle connectedness, recreational programs and spaces, access to quality health care, local high-quality food access, cultural attractions, and the preservation and enhancement of natural spaces.
Opportunity
Efforts focus on building human capital, supporting existing businesses and redeveloping industrial/commercial property for viable new businesses, which will require the deployment of capital and technical support to bolster neighborhood entrepreneurs. .
Through coordinated investment in available human and financial capital, technical support, marketing and “shovel-ready” real estate in neighborhoods, these places will retain and attract growing small businesses and larger enterprises that will create jobs. This will also entail redeveloping older industrial and commercial areas (often including brownfields) to meet the location needs of growing regional business sectors. Additionally, it will include neighborhood-level commercial development that will offer essential goods and services in mixed-use places.
Vitality
Retaining and attracting residents to under-populated neighborhoods in a way that diversifies household income levels will lead to enhanced density and prosperity of these neighborhoods and the city.
To increase renovation and new construction, investments will support initiatives that include creative financing options, land banking, targeted home repair financing, energy efficiency improvements and code enforcement for existing buildings.
Education
Each Great Place will offer a rich array of educational opportunities to its residents from cradle to career to ensure that all children in these areas will have access to quality public schools, and that adults will have opportunities to improve their employment skills.
Quality pre-K will be available through licensed child care centers, and the assurance of high quality K-12 education will be fulfilled by first supporting the health of existing high-performing schools serving the area. If existing schools are failing, efforts will be made to convert them into Innovation schools, or attracting new schools. Adult education will focus on linking residents to Centers for Working Families, and then to relevant workforce development programs leading to growing areas of employment.