I remember, years ago, when the promises for Destiny USA began over in Syracuse. It seemed that there was a new groundbreaking every year, and that each groundbreaking resulted in nothing but a little patch of broken ground. This disturbing pattern of broken promises has been noticed by Green Party candidate for Syracuse City Council, Howie Hawkins. Hawkins notes that the credit line for Destiny USA ever-evolving vision of the future has been yanked.

“If we are going to have meaningful economic development, we are going to have to do it ourselves. The Big Boss is not coming back. No big corporation or developer is going to rescue Syracuse no matter how many tax breaks we give them. The Enterprise Zones and Empire Zones have been tried for decades and failed to halt the exodus of jobs, industries, and people. Destiny USA looks bust,” Hawkins notes.

As an alternative to the top-down approach that the failed Destiny USA project took to redevelopment in Syracuse, Hawkins proposes a bottom-up strategy. That strategy includes a stronger living wage, a municipal bank for small enterprise, public-owned power, neighborhood-based planning, and a public information infrastructure.

The fundamental concept behind the Hawkins campaign is that it’s the people of Syracuse who have the power to rebuild their city. If no great savior from the corporate world or Washington D.C. is going to come in and make things better, shouldn’t redevelopment in Syracuse start with giving the people who live there themselves a fair shake?