What's Old is New Again

The five meetings held by the City last month to introduce its new Office of Neighborhood Initiatives and the conceptual framework for its mission, revealed something interesting and important about the City:

Long time residents located their fondest memories—“better days”-- somewhere in the past, and wanted to recreate a City and neighborhoods where good things happen like they used to in the old days. To some extent, they lamented change because they saw its negative consequences.

More recently arrived residents described the virtues of the City as it exists today and said what attracted them to Geneva is what it is now, how little it has changed—compared to other places they know, blah suburban McPlaces or big cities seemingly losing their warmth and given over only to the pursuit of wealth.

What is critical is that both groups valued quality of life and community, and both expected Geneva to be a place where they can be found. That suggests a powerful, intergenerational alliance might be formed between them today, and that should be an important aspect of the Office of Neighborhood Initiatives, trying to harness a commonality of purpose between some of Geneva’s longest, and shortest-term residents. That commonality exists in what the older residents say they remember about Geneva and what the newer residents say brought them here by a recent choice.

The Office of Neighborhood Initiatives may strike some as a new effort with a lot of new faces, but at its core, it is a revival of the traditional community values which are, themselves, the most progressive concept to hit Geneva in decades.