Joe Zilber has given Milwaukee a chance to reinvent itself with his $50 million commitment to community development across the city. Eugene Kane has some ideas about how to invest the money.

Zilber’s team wants to hear more from the rest of us.

So here goes.

• Create a Green Milwaukee Fund to pay for environmental performance improvements in commercial or residential properties. Green Milwaukee dollars would provide the up-front capital. Recipients would agree to repay the fund via savings achieved by reductions in energy consumption or material waste. This formula allows homeowners or landlords to upgrade housing or commercial stock without incurring any capital costs. There could — and should — be a requirement that all vendors employ people from low-moderate income communities. Training dollars would necessarily have to be a component of the program.
  
  Imagine a city full of renovated, green buildings built on the backs of a newly-trained local workforce. The result would be a healthier city with more skilled workers in a growing industry (”green” construction).
• Kane extols the virtues of fresh food for city dwellers and I agree. I would go a step further and build local capacity to grow food locally through a Milwaukee Urban Gardens campaign. There are plenty of examples or working farms in the middle of cities that improve the health of residents and contribute to a sense of community cohesion. And Milwaukee already has local models that could be brought to scale to meet the needs of the whole city.
• Milwaukee’s parks rivers and lake(s) are a huge asset and are in danger because of mismanagement and strained budgets. Create a Green Corps of local youth to clean-up and maintain the city’s public spaces. The concept could be expanded to include ALL of Milwaukee’s public assets and refurbish roads, sewers and public facilities. This would build public management skills and instill a service ethic among youth.
• Though transportation does not fall directly within the scope of the Zilber Neighborhoods Initiative, the ability to move around efficiently is key to finding and keeping good jobs and broadening the horizons of young people. I would spend some portion of Joe Zilber’s money to expand clean, public transportation options.
• Similarly, expanded access to broadband doesn’t always fall into the realm of “community development” but it is very clear that the digital divide between the poor and the not poor hinders growth and limits opportunities in low-income communities. Access to and fluency with information technologies is critical to competing in today’s world. It is about time that Milwaukee commits to providing everyone with 21st century tools.

Send your own ideas to jsmetro@journalsentinel.com.