Taking our cities back

I am in a part of America that few Americans know it exists and even fewer have seen. Rural and semi-urban South-West Virginia, a region that was different times at the heart of coal and trains production, the textile industry, and later furniture, is now trying to stay afloat as it deals with unprecedented and rising poverty levels. Roanoke, the first city in our itinerary has almost 100,000 inhabitants, a quarter of which are under the poverty level. Instead of giving up, local authorities are fighting as hard as they can to keep the town alive and to move it forward. A tour we received explained to us all the efforts that have been done in recent decades to revitalize the community. What is interesting about the authority's strategy is that they did not have mega projects that cost hundreds of milions of dollars, but instead had multiple smaller projects. The old proverb that you should not put all your eggs in one basked has been wisely followed in Roanoke. From the many small scale projects, one refurbished building there, one small contruction over here, one rebuilt complex over there, some failed, but most succeeded, giving the town a slow, but constant push to move ahead. It's like geometric distribution, instead of throwing one big rock in a pont, it's better to throw many smaller rock, if your goal is to create waves. The most interesting part of the authority's strategy however, is how they choose where to invest the little money that they have in order to reduce crime and make neighborhood livable. By trying to buy "problem buildings" where crime is concentrated, they bring massive improvement to surrounding areas, improvement that could be achieved much harder if the entire neighborhood was to be rebuilt. Once one or two problem buildings are taken care of, the whole vibe of the community changes.