The Harvard Guys: Baptist Town's First Effective City Planners?

Harvard public policy students Babak Mostaghimi (left) and Ololade Olakanmi July 14 at Delta Bistro, after attending the Baptist Town Blues Marker unveiling.

Ololade Olakanmi described his first visit to Greenwood's Baptist Town neighborhood in January as "quite shocking." Originally from Iowa City, Iowa, "Olo" had done his homework on the area but was still surprised to see the poor living conditions in the Baptist Town community in person. Baptist town is bordered by Walker Street to the north, the Columbus and Greenville Railroad to the south, Avenue A to the east, and McCain Street to the west. His colleague Babak Mostaghimi, although a Minnesota guy, knew what to expect. He had taught previously in Shelby, Miss. with Teach for America.

Olo and Babak are Harvard students from the Kennedy School of Government. They and eight other students first came to Greenwood at the start of the year to begin the Baptist Town Community Development Project, which they organized on their own, of their own volition and are funding through several grants. It is a project combining students from public policy, business and other disciplines to work on city and neighborhood planning. City planning by definition is an interdisciplinary field of study whereby policy, public participation, and implementation strategies combine to help city residents shape the future of the communities in which they live.

They are not the first group to take on such a project for Baptist Town. Several similar groups have come and gone in past years. For example, a fairly recent study was sponsored by Viking Range Corp. and conducted by the College of Architecture, Art and Design's Carl Small Town Center at Mississippi State University. The Delta Dirt is currently unsure how much wasted grant money was used to create this lengthy document, which wound up sitting on an office floor until a certain Thomas Gregory (who recently obtained his master's degree in city and regional planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) requested that a copy be sent to him. This plan details that a number of things be done to Baptist Town -- like adding lighting to the neighborhood, appropriate embellishments to homes, landscaping, building a community computer center. Not one of these suggestions has been implemented.

Babak and Olo summed up traditional city planning technique: Go to a place, assess what you think it needs, write a report and host a town hall meeting where you tell people who have never laid eyes on you what they ought to do with their neighborhood.

This group of students took a more modern approach. Olo, Babak and crew spent their first two weeks in Greenwood walking door to door through the neighborhood getting to know the residents and soliciting opinions on the area and changes residents would like to see. They call their approach "realistic" and starting from the "grass roots level." They interviewed 50-60 households.

"From the outside, you think these are apathetic people who don't give a crap," Babak said. But "on the ground," as he says, Babak and Olo found different information. A family might have an old couch in the front yard, he said, but they can't get rid of it because they have no car. The city won't pick it up for them. And furthermore, they didn't put it there in the first place -- someone dumped it. This area of town is often used as a trash depository by non-residents, he said.

Babak found a "treasure trove of skills" among residents and a bartering system. Car work is traded for a hair cuts and so on.

Babak and Olo said residents might have been suspicious of them at first, but became comfortable with them after being acquainted. Babak said he felt his Iranian heritage helped him in interviews, as people saw him not as black or white but neutral.

In the past six months, Babak and Olo said they have already seen changes in the neighborhood. It looks cleaner, and residents are talking to each other more, they said. Two neighborhood churches, McKinney chapel and New Zion, have been tremendously helpful. McKinney has donated facilities and food for workshops, and New Zion is working on starting an after-school program.

The Harvard students chose the Greenwood area for their project per the suggestion of Cyd McKenna, an MIT student and former 2008 planning intern for Mayor Sheriel Perkins, because it "had all the pieces to be successful," Babak said. Tourism, industry, nearby Mississippi Valley State University and Mississippi Delta Community College, close proximity to Interstate 55 and rich civil rights and blues heritage are pieces that can be used in a puzzle for success. "People here across the board recognize this is time for change," he said.

Olo and Babak plan to come back to continue their work in August and October. Once their plan is released, it will go to the hands of the City and Baptist Town residents to make the changes that they recommend for the future development of this historic Greenwood neighborhood.

We look forward to seeing the contents of this report, which will hopefully contain viable suggestions and quotes from Baptist Town residents on realistic goals that are actually being implemented, in addition to being outlined.

Addendum: Olo tells me that their project has used $12,000 in grant money thus far, which has funded their three trips to Greenwood -- the first of which involved eight people. By grant standards they are indeed being frugal and are on a tight budget. Published 7.22.09 at 10:17 p.m.