The Dream Shanty

So I entered this in the Minnesota Idea Open competition…
I got into the top 10% cut-off, but I didn’t make it through round two of cuts.
What do you think of it?

The Idea

Our little ice fishing shanty on wheels draws on an eclectic mix of successes, including the Art Shanty Project on Medicine Lake, NPR’s Storycorps project, and the famed impromptu block parties of Philadelphia. The Dream Shanty inspires initial connections through the comfort of shared food, merely setting the stage for building cross-cultural connections based on people’s dreams and gifts.
Neighborhood volunteers will build the Dream Shanty, which will feature a commercial-sized BBQ grill, a fold-down cooler for beverages, and perhaps a freezer for ice cream. Budding neighborhood chefs will highlight a diverse selection of ethnic foods, with nearby block clubs, faith communities, and youth ambassadors handling other tasks. Food and beverages will be a mix of potluck-style offerings and donations from local associations and nonprofits.
Using a Storycorps-inspired A/V setup, trained interviewers will get people talking in English, Hmong, and Spanish, with edited videos featured on a YouTube channel. While community meetings tend to focus on problems for outside agencies like police to solve, asset interviews focus on the gifts and vision of our neighbors as our main hope and resource.
Local, multi-ethnic artists will adorn the Dream Shanty inside and out, drawing on the theme of “gifts of the head, hands, and heart.” The air-conditioned interior will feature a self-contained, user-friendly A/V setup with a chair and a loveseat. Through a window, an edited video display of previous interviews will play on a loop.
Using an asset-mapping database, we will link interviewees’ gifts with commonly elicited dreams to create grassroots community project teams. Neighbors will act on their own behalf together, as neither constituents nor clients. The Dream Shanty will reach beyond typical “celebrate diversity” efforts to form deep bonds through shared vision, in a world where differences become assets.

Impact and Building Bonds Across Cultures

Dayton’s Bluff neighborhood’s once-beautiful housing stock is decaying in the aftermath of the housing crisis. For decades, local organizations—under white leadership—attempted to stabilize the community through homeownership programs, while gentrifying it with an historic district. But Wilder’s census reports indicate a continuous rise in low-incomes, rental households, and people of color, who now make up 54% of our neighbors, 61% of whom are renters.
The increase in rentership has irritated many homeowners, whose property improvements have yielded negative returns. Absentee landlords dominate the housing market; their low rents attract low-income families, but minimal upkeep and management creates instability as those families leave to seek better housing. A rise in cultural differences and high resident turnover chokes off the trust and connection neighbors might otherwise share, leading to a lack of community pride and a tendency for long-term residents to scapegoat renters—which, given the demographics, exacerbates racial tensions.
The Dream Shanty attempts to create an exciting way for neighbors to interact on a more regular basis than National Night Out. After living and working in the community for over 9 years, I’ve noticed we have very few places and occasions to gather; it’s my hope that if neighbors know one another’s names and see one another’s visions and gifts, the neighborhood can become a more stable place. Multimedia and social networking will further promote community conversations and inspire community pride.
In addition to the Community Council, other associations, nonprofits, and faith communities could partner to host Shanty Parties. Occasionally, local chefs might host a night. Neighbors could request it on their birthdays. It can be unannounced or narrowly promoted on a particular block. Where funds or partners can’t secure food, door-knocking and personal invitations could make it a potluck.

Implementation, Feasibility, and Impact

As a community connector, I’ve been surveying neighborhood assets for almost a decade. Partnering my fledgling effort, Dayton’s Bluff Community Asset Network, with the Dayton’s Bluff Community Council has built upon one another’s strengths. The Dream Shanty is a natural next step to convene the neighborhood around DB-CAN’s wide network, with support from DBCC’s capacity and organizational connections. Convening is the key to cross-cultural connection; meaningful conversations, to deepen those connections.
Rather than expecting marginalized people to reach into existing power structures or social networks, DB-CAN will seek out new immigrants and marginalized neighbors as the primary producers of the Dream Shanty. Organizational partners like Hmong American Partnership, 180 Degrees, and East Side Family Center are already helping DB-CAN find new voices and new gifts. These folks will comprise the core of Dream Shanty artists, cooks, interviewers, interview subjects, etc. Even if all this does is get people from different backgrounds to recognize one another’s giftedness—rather than their isolation, needs, or problems—this project will have been worthwhile.
As the project gains momentum, the Dream Shanty YouTube channel will promote a belief in abundance and community pride. Above all, the Dayton’s Bluff Community Council has pledged to seek additional funding to provide micro-grants for “Dream Projects.” These projects could build upon Shanty Party connections to beautify streets, create labor exchanges, or incubate businesses. Perhaps renters experiencing substandard housing might forge connections through this project that help bring about their own quality affordable housing. There is no limit to what can happen when neighbors implement their own visions with the backing of local institutions.
The Dream Shanty could become a highly reproducible model for promoting ongoing community listening and grassroots leadership in any neighborhood.

Light Rail and Equity in Seattle

I just got back from Seattle, where we visited my spouse’s West Coast work domain, as well as his stepmom Judi, brother Alex, and soon-to-be sister-in-law Rose. I had been planning an errand to research King County’s famous equity policies, but the rental car was just enough to get the spouse to work and back in excruciating rush hour traffic.
So instead, I found myself learning a lot about segregation, light rail transit, and the immigrant experience.
With regard to light rail: I don’t know how a city like Seattle—concentrated on a narrow strip of land, with so maritime commerce and large companies like Microsoft—would ever get along without it. They already had the express lanes, the high-occupancy lanes, and an incredible bus system (complete with electric busses downtown), and it just wasn’t enough. People wanted to arrive home at night in time to see their kids, and living close to any major economic hub costs a fortune. Still, every new addition of LRT is fraught with conflict, and the major line extends only between the airport and downtown. Future plans include a northward extension and a university extension.
Which brings us to inequity and the hope for something better.
What I noticed about Seattle is its incredible segregation. Rose’s family lives in a part of town in which local schools are majority low-income, and minority white. The high school is one of the worst in the state, and Seattle just passed a rule that public school students must attend their local school. When Alex first met Rose’s family, he claimed that he had rarely seen a person of color in Seattle, and was surprised at the concentration of marginalized folks in one small area.
In 2009, however, the LRT was built near their home. I’m going to take a wild, but fairly educated guess that the property takes and traffic disruption it caused were concentrated in the poorest areas of town, with the hopes of increasing economic development and—more cynically on my part—to minimize the number of voices opposing the project.
One might expect that the LRT would bring gentrification to the areas around the route. That it would force out families like Rose’s. But I noticed the still-high concentration of light-industrial and minority-niche shops along the route. A lonely high-rise condo sat on a key corner, with empty retail space on its fancy first floor. A local flea market took up a huge warehouse nearby, promising secondhand clothing and DVDs. The local playground was full of non-native English speakers and other people of color, gleefully enjoying the updated equipment and well-manicured grass. Meanwhile, Rose takes the LRT daily to her job downtown, allowing her to live at home with her family rather than pay the exorbitant rents elsewhere.
I dreamed of this for Dayton’s Bluff. How might our renters and low-income folks be connected to jobs downtown and in Woodbury if the Gateway LRT/BRT were built? And how might we ensure that such a project would bring in capital without pricing people out of their homes? In short, how does government stabilize the community even as it improves it? It’s my hope that such infrastructure projects on the Bluff would continue to encourage its diversity and lift everyone’s prospects.
I reflected on these “big ideas” most of my trip. But these abstractions were no match for the concrete experience of meeting Rose’s family, all filtered through my first-gen middle-class white female perspective. (But that’s for another day.)