by Hollis Wormsby, Jr.
Only a Shared Vision Will Truly Create Change in the Community
I think one of the reasons it is so difficult to find solutions to the challenges facing our community is that there is not a shared vision of what we want our community to be. Before you can solve a problem you must agree on what the problem is, and on what you want the solution to be. Otherwise you might be working really hard, and not accomplishing a thing.
The definition of work in physics is the energy expended times the distance moved in the desired direction. What this means is if I expend a lot of energy but do not move in the desired direction I still did no work. What do we want our community to look like, and what are the problems that stand between us and that vision? That is the discussion we need to have.
So let me begin the discussion by sharing the community I would like to see us working toward becoming. I would like to live in a community that believes in opportunity for all, and that invests first and foremost in creating opportunity for its citizens. In our town I think that new buildings are nice, but they do not address the problems that challenge our community. I worked for the United States Senate during the time the Tombigbee Waterway was being developed. One summer I spent a lot of time to talking to mayors on the proposed Waterway about what impact they hoped the Waterway would have on their community. One of the most interesting responses I got was from the mayor of a small town who said, “If this community does not get itself together and do the things to get ready to take advantage of the opportunities the improved Waterway will bring, the only difference we will see is in the speed the river passes us by at.”
I would say something similar about all of the wonderful development going on in the City’s Southside and Midtown communities, the only impact it is having on other communities is giving those residents something pretty to see as they ride through downtown and back to neighborhoods without all the shiny newness. Though I do understand that the increase in property tax from these successes could create resources to address needs in older communities, and this could be a vision that simply has not been shared with me.
But my hope for my community would still not be to build shiny new buildings. I would want to build shiny new people. My vision is a Birmingham that focuses on educating the citizens that live here into becoming a world class workforce. My vision is a Birmingham that can take an illiterate, unengaged 18 year old, who believes his future is in dealing drugs and wreaking havoc and convince him that an education and a job are a better future and then help him get the tools to get there.
My vision is a Birmingham where opportunity is so great that when someone creates a crime we do not look up and say well what else could they do, but we wonder in amazement that they would make that choice when so many better choices were readily available.
Building people costs money just like building buildings does, and it can yield a return on investment in much the same way. Building people reduces crime by making productive citizens out of potential thugs. Building people raises property values, because when crime drops the homes in Birmingham with some of the most extraordinary architecture I have ever experienced may double in value overnight. Building people improves the quality of life for all, as with crime reductions come the opportunities to enjoy the things that crime has taken away from us. We can let our children play outside with less concern. We will see businesses return to the community and bring the jobs that left when they did.
I don’t think this is a pipe dream. I believe it can be done and I believe we should do it. Things have not always been the way they are now, and they do not always have to be.
Or at least that’s the way I see it.
(Do you have a question or comment on this column? Look me up on Facebook/HollisWormsby or email me at hjwormsby@aol.com.)
