jacobs foundation visits mt view

This month Roque Barros of the Jacobs Family Foundation was hosted by the Rasmuson Foundation. He talked on separate occasions to the officers of the Community Council; board members of the Trailer Art Center; the Anchorage Community Land Trust and others in the community.
Barros talked about the Foundation’s recent creation of The Village at Market Creek in the San Diego area. It is a sort of open air community quad with retail, community center and assembly components, with an arts immersion theme — right in line with what some people are thinking Mt View could become [in our wildest pipe dreams!]. The Village is located at the confluence of four Mt View-sized ethnic San Diego neighborhoods. It was developed with a team of people including artists at every step. As per the wishes of the residents, a grocery store was the first part of the project completed. Community centers followed later.
Barros impressed with his understanding of the dynamics of the relationships, the difficulties encountered dealing with an inflexible and paternalistic city government… and a willingness to tackle complicated issues head-on. He described how a section of The Village called ‘Writer’s Block’, a graffiti wall, came to be effectively managed cooperatively by competing factions without imposing a lot of rules.
He was encouraging about Mt View’s potential, saying we have a plethora of resources and advantages they didn’t have to start with in San Diego. And he gave some good general ideas on how to go about developing more clout.
I hope we can keep in touch with Barros as our ideas continue to develop.