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NEW BEGINNINGS FOR NEWTOWN

On February 11, the City held a community-wide meeting with Newtown neighbors asking them what ideas/solutions they had to improve the quality of life in the community, based on the five focus areas - Economic Development, Law Enforcement, Neighborhoods, Social Services and Youth Services. The goal was to identify ideas/solutions that could be accomplished by the citizens of Newtown to bring about change, with the understanding that change must come from the inside-out. In other words, what are the assets of Newtown and how can they be tapped to accomplish change?

At the February 23 community-wide meeting, the ideas/solutions identified at the 2/11 meeting were presented in a summary format, based on focus area. John McKnight, the founder of the Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) philosophy explained that for real, sustainable change to occur, residents must take back ownership of their community through a grass-roots effort (inside-out approach), and not expect the government or other institutions to do this. Newtown neighbors at this meeting then broke-out into focus groups based on their area of interest. The first part of the focus group activity centered on identifying what ideas/solutions are high, medium, or low priority, and then which ideas can be accomplished by citizens alone (inside), by both citizens and government (together) and by only government (outside). The second part of the focus group activity entailed each group selecting their highest priority idea/solution and developing an action plan to accomplish it.

The five focus areas identified by Newtown stakeholders as specific areas to be addressed in order to bring holistic change to Newtown are listed below. The links below each category are the results of brainstorming/focus groups of Newtown neighbors.