The future of any city is its young people.
Then why isn’t Rochester putting its central focus on children?
The mayor of Newark, N.J., Corey Booker believes in the future of young people and continues to act on a number of fronts. He was speaking in Minneapolis recently at a Westminster Town Hall meeting.
At one point Newark had the highest crime rate in the country. He said at one point shootings for one year totaled 425, more than one a day.
Now that the city has stepped in this has been lowered. Booker said they scoured the country for ideas.
The net result is one-stop help centers for troubled youth getting out of jail. The same concept is being used for troubled dads and even grandparents who are caregivers. In these centers people can access all of the services they need and want.
Programs empower teenagers and dads. In the latter case dads mentor dads. In two years of data, the number of dads returning to jail is now less than five percent. Nationally the number is more than 60 percent.
What does Rochester do?
No question the city has youth programs. There’s no question concerned people are involved.
But there is no city-wide focus.
Booker said, “You can always do a little more.” And he added, “The impossible is the least we can demand.”
Instead Rochester is focused on failures and developers. For example the city is just barely dealing with public safety issues. This movement has just started, with much more do. A drug court is a good idea, but there is no money.
Maybe dads mentoring dads would take less money?
Rochester knows about gangs, but what is being done for youth when they finish their sentences?
Does the city know how much is being paid out to address these failures?
These are some of the questions also being asked in Newark, Booker said.
For example, we hear about brain drains – where leading thinkers leave an industry or an area in mass.
Does Rochester have a brain drain of its college-educated young people?
Nobody has presented hard-core numbers. For that matter nobody has asked.
But the anecdotal signs are there that a brain drain is occurring. Jobs for college graduates aren’t here and indeed this is true around the country, so the city may not be unusual.
But Rochester isn’t making any effort to diversify its economy either.
Yes, the University of Minnesota-Rochester offers great potential for high-school graduates. Health care is a growing field, just not in Rochester.
Recently a young family man heard about Dubuque, Iowa, which is being held up by many as a model of economic growth. To paraphrase this young man: “What am I doing here? Dubuque is only an hour and a half away.”
Another young man is working on a four-year business degree but he has no intentions of finishing it while still in Rochester. To again paraphrase, “There is nothing here for me.”
Where does any city start? Booker said, “A city starts with government.” He agrees there is a lot of mistrust in government.
But he added, “Government is us.”
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