References Branscombe, Art, and Bea Sutton Branscombe. 1993–95. “Park Hill History-A Treasury of Memories," a 21-part series. The Greater Park Hill News, May/June 1993 to March/ April 1995. Denver Police Department. 1991-94. Annual Reports. Ford, Frank. 1994. The Greater Park Hill Initiative for Organizing the Northeast Area of Greater Park Hill. Denver: Colorado Center for Community Development. Piton Foundation. 1994. Poverty in Denver: Facing the Facts. Denver: Piton Foundation. U.S. Bureau of the Census. 1990 and 1980. Census Tracts 41.01, 41.02, 41.03, 41.04, 42.01, 42.02, and part of 44.01. Chapter 6: Sherman Park, Milwaukee Edward Valent Milwaukee Public Schools Gregory Squires University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Milwaukee, Wisconsin, long one of the Nation's leading industrial centers and home to an ethnically diverse population, has experienced significant deindustrialization and hypersegregation in recent decades. Milwaukee also has been the location of significant struggles to create and maintain stable, diverse neighborhoods. Many of those struggles have focused on a neighborhood known as Sherman Park. The first place in Milwaukee to be called Sherman Park is a Milwaukee County park that occupies four square blocks on the city's west side. In 1970 a group of seven families living near the park decided to establish a neighborhood organization, called the Sherman Park Community Association (SPCA), to address local concerns. The families decided that the boundaries of their city aldermanic district would also be SPCA's boundaries (Saltman, 1990). At that time, this neighborhood included nearly 39,000 people in an approximately 300-block area (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1970). SPCA's first publicly stated goal was to improve the quality of life in what had been the city's fifth ward (Mazurek and Johannsen, 1971). A key component of that quality was racial diversity and inclusivity. SPCA was about to provide a lasting new identity for its slice of Milwaukee. The fifth ward has been redistricted out of existence, but its previous boundaries now form the heart of the neighborhood commonly known as Sherman Park. SPCA has expanded its official organizational boundaries to the east and north since it was formed in 1970. This change must be noted when tracking neighborhood developments over time, since the demographic nature of the added areas was and remains quite different from that of the original neighborhood. Sherman Park's westside Milwaukee identity as a community working to create and sustain racial, ethnic, and economic diversity was already well established when it annexed adjacent neighborhoods in the 1980s. This annexation increased the population of SPCA's service area by about one-third. It was done because SPCA saw value in extending its housing rehabilitation and neighborhood organizing resources to areas that lacked such assets (Geenan, 1996). The annexed area, which formed a new eastern boundary for the neighborhood, was much older, more industrial, and poorer than the rest of Sherman Park. It was also overwhelmingly African-American, and not at all diverse when included in SPCA's neighborhood. Since promotion of diversity had long been a central SPCA goal, : A Journal of Policy Development and Research • Volume 4, of Housing and Urban Development • Office of Policy Development one of the association's challenges in the annexed area was to build strengths to attract that diversity. Sherman Park can be best understood by examining four areas within the community: western, central, eastern, and annexed eastern sectors (see exhibits 1, 2, 3, and 4). In a neighborhood such as Sherman Park, which is the size of a small city, it is helpful to study the area subdivisions to avoid misleading conclusions. |