What Makes for a Flourishing Neighborhood?

In 2022, Walnut Neighborhood’s partner, Iowa Heartland Habitat for Humanity, hired The Lupton Center, consultants in holistic neighborhood transformation, to provide guidance for the work being done in both the Walnut and Church Row Neighborhoods of Waterloo.

The Lupton Center uses a Flourishing Neighborhood Index and trains local practitioners in conducting a mapping exercise and a survey given to neighbors to assess a neighborhood’s health as measured by 12 indicators on the Flourishing Neighborhood Index.

These 12 indicators are listed under three main categories: Structural, Economic, and Social.
When Walnut Neighbor and Link leader, Laura Hoy, received training from the Lupton Center regarding The Flourishing Neighborhood Index, she heard a Lupton Center Staff say, “It’s the social indicators that often drive the economic and structural indicators.  It’s the social indicators that are of fundamental importance for a neighborhood’s flourishing.”

Hoy, in reflecting back in her years of work within the Walnut Neighborhood, has seen evidence to support those statements.  With little economic or structural investment happening, committed neighbors and friends worked to connect and engage neighbors.  Monthly neighborhood meetings, traditions and annual Christmas caroling, potlucks, flower planting, litter pick-ups, and prayer walking all provided opportunities for neighbors and partnering churches, businesses, and nonprofits to build the foundation of trusting relationships, cultivate pride and hope, and to speak vision together about what could be in the Walnut Neighborhood.  Over time, partnerships were built that began to address housing, business, and some of those structural and economic indicators mentioned in the Flourishing Neighborhood Index (FNI).

Focusing on assets and “what do we have?” rather than “what is missing?” has been the greatest strategy toward neighborhood transformation.  By recognizing people and relationships as the greatest assets, those connections and partnerships began to grow, strengthen, and take on the structural and economic challenges in the neighborhood.

This past summer, surveys were conducted in the Walnut Neighborhood, and the results are back that will give our neighborhood feedback on its strengths, weaknesses, and priorities going forward.  At our January 5, 2023, Walnut Neighborhood Association Meeting (6-7 p.m. Harvest Vineyard Church, 715 E. 4th St.), results will be shared with neighbors.  Together, we’ll continue to cultivate a great neighborhood because it is only TOGETHER that we can build the strong social fabric needed for a flourishing neighborhood.