Transforming Buffalo’s ‘Black East Side’ is focus of UB symposium

The public is invited to “How We Change the Black East Side” to learn about and discuss the East Side Neighborhood Transformation Project. The project is a new approach to community development that is geared toward radically transforming neighborhoods on the Black East Side, organizers say.

Also during the event, five census tracts that have been selected as finalists for the first pilot demonstration project will be announced.

The ultimate goal of the pilot neighborhood project is to comprehensively address the social determinants of health, said Henry Louis Taylor Jr., director of UB’s Center for Urban Studies.

“We want to illustrate that the social determinants of health are rooted in the underdeveloped neighborhoods where people live,” Taylor said. “Therefore, we cannot eliminate health disparities and inequities without transforming the neighborhoods where Black people live. Urban health and neighborhoods are interconnected.”

The symposium also will help identify community and city partners, as well as potential funders. In addition, organizers will launch several months of research into each of the neighborhoods identified as finalists. The results of the research will be submitted to a Community Advisory Group that will solicit broad community support and select the first East Side neighborhood to undergo transformation.

The symposium will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. Monday in the M&T Auditorium of the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at UB, 955 Main St. The event is free and open to the public. Register via the Center for Urban Studies page on Facebook.