Can anything good come out of Liberty City?

Someone well versed in NYC real estate once told me that you could tell a neighborhood was gentrifying when the liquor stores and chicken shacks were replaced with fruit and vegetable stands and coffee shops. I didn't believe it until the local fried fish/seafood restaurant on Broadway near Kosciusko in Bed Sty was transformed into a fruit and veggie stand as more and more Caucasians stood shoulder to shoulder with me on the train to commute to work.

I was reminded of this today in a conversation about why District 5, which encompasses Liberty City, Little Haiti, Wynwood, and Overtown is so desolate. I don't live anywhere near that area. In fact, I live over 100 blocks away. I'm so far North in Miami I could walk across the county line into Broward within minutes. However, anywhere black and brown people reside sparks an interest in me.

We have to do more than offer lip service. It's high time someone gets up and makes the changes that are so desperately needed in District 5. In an area that's been littered with false promises, allegations of shady doings, court proceedings, arrests and the like, it's almost like a complacency has settled over District 5.

I am proof positive that out of heartbreak and pain can come positivity. Who would have thought that the little girl born to a teen mom in a lower middle class neighborhood in NYC would go on to do some of the things that I have done? Be the places that I have been? Work for the places I have worked? Have the dreams that I hope to realize? We need to foster that same hope in the generations behind us. It sounds so trite- but that No Child Left Behind slogan rings true- "We must lift as we climb to leave no child behind."

That also involves not becoming successful and running away from "the hood" into Broward County because we're so "above it all". Stay and help make some of those much needed changes. Convert the liquor and number running shack into that healthy fruit stand that sells snacks to the kids that will do the body good. Build a community garden in the vacant lot on the corner. Patronize black businesses- and if you ARE a black business offer something that seems to lack in our shops- GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE. No, that's not an exception. It's basically the rule. There also needs to be some real revitalization, which means job creation. It's great that Walgreens and Jackson Hewitt have a thriving business, but what about health clinics? Book stores? A Whole Foods? A movie theater? A bistro? What about a good old fashioned jazz cafe? I'm just throwing some things out there. Don't say it can't happen. I'll point you no further than downtown Brooklyn, New York for evidence that it most certainly CAN happen.

I could go on for hours, but I'll close this by saying change is coming to District 5. I plan to put all my support behind it because I for one want politicians to put up or shut up. LIVES depend on it.