This project’s intention is to document and represent efforts to develop and implement a proposed Community Based Resource and Technology Center (CBRTC) in the basement of the Burton Street Recreation Center. The Burton Street Community Center is located in a historically working class African American community in West Asheville, North Carolina. This project will maps the goals, challenges and remedies for successfully bringing community members together with city agencies and non-profits in order to find working solutions to real life public policy problems, in this case how city and community can work together to bring know how (i.e. technical knowledge) and resources (funding and business opportunities) in order to create a center where people can partake in activities that range from online job searching, to recording family oral histories, and the making and recording of music. To date, despite the effort of many, the various pieces of the implementation puzzle have not been put together so all parties are on the same policy process timeline. It is the goal of this research to identify where the various actors in the process are, establish key areas that need improved communication and collaboration, and to distinguish ways in which actors, community people and/or city agencies or non-profits, can solve communication and resource issues. It is hope that such identification and description of the process will facilitate the next step solutions to achieve the ultimate goal of a CBRTC which all parties agree would be a positive asset, not only to the neighborhood, but to the community at large and could also serve as a model for other communities. Finally, this project will also include a schematic representation of what other communities within Asheville area as well as in the United States have done to achieve similar goals.
