
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, March 25, 1994                   TAG: 9403280146
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

CITY FORUM

IF YOU live in Roanoke's core inner-city neighborhoods, Roanoke wants you. Or if you work in them. Or just care about them.

Saturday, city officials will hold a public forum from 10 a.m. to noon at the Lucy Addison Middle School gym. From this they will begin the process of forming a citizens advisory board to help create a vision for community and economic development - and a plan to realize it - in poor neighborhoods. Much may ride on the results.

Most immediately, the strategic plan that emerges will be the core of the city's application to participate in the federal Urban Empowerment Zone and Enterprise Communities Program, a distinction that could give Roanoke a big boost in getting federal and state assistance in turning vision into reality.

For the longer term, this is about creating jobs, making streets safe and houses livable, giving voice to the people who live and work there and want to improve their quality of life, and bringing all of the community into the effort. To get the goodies, or even if it doesn't win the grants, the community must know what it wants these neighborhoods to become, and have clear goals for getting there.

This is an opportunity to help shape the future of people and places in the heart of our community. Their fate can't be isolated from the fate of the region.

by CNB