Developing Community Trust and Innovation for Neighborhood Revitalization

Joshi was there in the church basement to listen and learn from people who know the East Side, a predominantly Black neighborhood, better than anyone. They told her about the 1908 race riots, when a white mob burned down Black-owned homes and businesses there. She heard about how redlining in the 1940s entrenched racial segregation and how generations of disinvestment undermined recovery.

Joshi could feel the history of distrust between the community and City Hall. But as the mayor’s person charged with turning that dynamic around, she sensed a window of opportunity, as well.

“It was just me and the mayor sitting with the pastors all day, eating lunch, talking and trying to understand the history and what’s needed,” Joshi says. “Going to the church in the first week of the fellowship was really important to getting community buy-in from the get-go and setting the tone around my work’s approach. While the community saw it as an incredible opportunity to have this capacity at City Hall dedicated to thinking about the East Side, I saw it as an opportunity to let their lived experiences and needs drive the work.”

Working in collaboration with East Side residents and city staff, Joshi developed a portfolio of 11 innovation projects aimed at improving quality of life in the community. The most visible is called BUILD Springfield. Every other month, a section of the East Side gets a makeover as dozens of city staff and partner organizations flood into the area to clean up and mow vacant lots, trim trees, fix broken signs and traffic lights, and make other infrastructure improvements. At the same time, city staff go door to door to hear directly from residents about neighborhood problems, taking care of some issues right away.

“The first time we did it, a lot of residents came up and asked us, ‘What are you guys doing? We’ve never seen the city come to the East Side,’” Joshi recalls. “To me, the success is creating an opportunity for city staff to go out into the community to see the people they’re working for.”

By the summer of 2024, BUILD Springfield had cleaned up 119 blocks, or about 15 percent of the East Side. Gunshots in the area are down and service requests are up — a sign that East Side residents see the city as more responsive to their needs. The city is also addressing localized challenges proactively with Public Works “Zone Managers” and Neighborhood Police Officers. The state of Illinois awarded Springfield a $3 million grant to continue the program.

That wasn’t the last grant Joshi would help Springfield land. In 2023, she wrote a white paper on how to scale up promising East Side programs aimed at minority workforce training and development. That paper turned into a grant application that earned a $500,000 award from the federal government. The planning grant funded new staff to hone Springfield’s workforce development strategy after Joshi’s time in the city ended, helping realize the fellowship’s capacity-building aim.

Before attending Harvard, Joshi worked in India, advocating for indigenous and tribal communities in Mumbai and elsewhere. She sees parallels between historic underinvestment there and what she’s experienced in Springfield’s East Side — and believes city government is the place to be for young professionals like her who want to make change that people feel in their lives.

Joshi’s next job after the fellowship is with the NYC Office of the Mayor Innovation Team, where she will work on a number of issues, including increasing the uptake of social benefits programs among eligible residents. “The grassroots work I was able to do through the fellowship was incredibly rewarding,” she says. “And I am grateful to be able to continue the work in New York City Hall. I want to serve historically underinvested communities.”

Follow the Bloomberg Harvard City Hall Fellows and learn more about the fellowship program.