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Originally known as the Minneapolis Center for Neighborhoods, the Center was
formed in 1994 to find ways to strengthen neighborhoods, to help them develop a
more effective voice and to facilitate cooperation among neighborhoods and city
and regional policymakers. In 2002, the Center’s name was changed to reflect the
fact that our efforts increasingly serve the broader Twin Cities metropolitan region.
A neighborhood organization’s constituents are defined by geography, by where
they live. This puts these organizations in a complex role as they try to find
consensus among people with disparate political, cultural, social and personal
beliefs. As a result, two of the biggest ongoing challenges that face
neighborhood groups are inclusiveness – the active work of ensuring that all
residents have a voice – and the need to look beyond solutions that are based
solely on a common local geography.
Over the years, the Center for Neighborhoods has come to recognize that while
neighborhoods provide a focus for our work, our primary audience is individual
citizens. We work to inspire civic participation and promote an understanding of
why such participation is critical to the strength of cities and the
metropolitan region. Because neighborhood organizations are looked to by both
citizens and government to provide a vehicle for civic participation, it is
essential that they have the capacity and expertise to fulfill this role
effectively.
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