Vision/Concept can be applied anywhere:

A Buffalo Version (Revised from the NYC original project):

Arts & Culture: Business/Economic Development

A striving business district in the community with an art and cultural theme – a strategy/magnet to attract and increase consumer traffic of benefit to our Latino community businesses. La Fortaleza Project

By: Alberto O. Cappas,

Poet/Writer/Publisher/Community Activist

Buffalo, NY

PROJECT: To creative and foster cultural/arts industries and new Latino businesses that generate jobs and income; spin off new products and services and attract unrelated businesses and skilled workers; to organize and unify all Puerto Rican/Latino homeowners and renters to develop a strong force against gentrification.

Mission:

To set in place the economic, business, and community development on the west side of Buffalo with emphasis on the Arts and Culture, a solid base to attract tourism and new money to Buffalo’s Puerto Rican/Latino community.

Description: At present, the soul and heartbeat of Buffalo’s Puerto Rican/Latino community is on the Lower West Side. Most importantly, due to the aggressive movement of gentrification, there has been a large migration of Puerto Ricans/Latinos to the Upper West Side, moving to the Riverside Council District.

In the research and planning, this is an issue to review carefully: Lower West Side vs Riverside.

 The goal is to create an enterprise district on the Lower or Upper West Side (research and determination). We recognize the re-energizing contributions of new arrivals, but the zone is designed to attract and create a Puerto Rican-Latino economic/commercial engine, with plans to attract Latino businesses (including Latin American countries through their embassies, missions, and consulates) into the area and ensure that residents receive top priority for jobs created by the zone.

The main concern is for Puerto Ricans/Latinos to develop and establish their community plan for the West Side (determination), as opposed to being hit by “foreign gentrification” and local encroachment. The key is to strive and bring a new Puerto Rican/Latino face and character of direct benefit to home renters, homeowners, and local businesses, by employing and utilizing our traditional Puerto Rican/Latino Arts and Culture community.

The presence of our traditional arts and culture, with a Puerto Rican/Latino theme, in a designated district (determination), will create the flow of tourists and an increase in consumer traffic.

We know there exist government funds, as well as private funding foundations, to help in this effort, of creating “economic zones.”

In the development of the project, we need to look at the number of Puerto Rican/Latino Arts and cultural groups or businesses in operation throughout the city. It would be ideal to interest these arts and cultural groups to relocate to the designated Puerto Rican/Latino district. There are funds to help businesses relocate, as long as they relocate to the designated area.

Imagine this picture: El Batey, Raices, Amore & Heritage, El Buen Amigo, Artistas del Barrio, El Museo, Online Latino Art Gallery, Bookstore (market and promote local Puerto Rican/Latino authors), Puerto Rican/Latino Restaurants, and Pausa — all located in the district zone. If not interested in moving, perhaps they can open a satellite or an extension of their operation.

 As a beginning, we need to identify members of the community, those serving as leaders, activists, homeowners, business owners, and members of the Puerto Rican/Latino arts and cultural community, to make up this committee.

While it is a fact that this group or committee (community residents) is not composed of professional “community planners”, this would have to be the group to carve out a vision for the community’s housing, business, and economic development. Once the vision and community profile are established, we can begin to organize around the community concept and reach out to other community stockholders, and local elected officials, to work with the committee to recruit the “professional planning team to help bring this community to life.

 For this to happen, we cannot play “politics” with our community. Either you are in, or you are out. Our elected officials must sign off on it and push it 100%. The city of Buffalo is a college town, we should have no difficulties in finding the professionals, the neighborhood, or community planners to implement this vision on behalf of a community that is only looking to belong and share its traditions and culture with the city of good neighbors. We need to identify and establish individual committees to research and work on the implementation of the above concept.

Photos: Alberto O. Cappas; Community Planning Verse 

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Note: Concept/Vision project was adopted in 2010 by La Fortaleza Community Corporation, Inc. in New York City. Today they sponsor several community projects, including the East Harlem Journal, El Festival del Libro, and the annual HERspanic Achievement Celebration, led by Felix Leo Campos.