PROVIDENCE – Bert Crenca, looking quite dashing in a sparkling blue blazer, had just returned from a panel discussion at the Power of Place Summit sponsored by GrowSmartRI at the R.I. Convention Center, where he and Barnaby Evans, the creator of WaterFire, had talked about what it took to create a sense of place.

Ironically, the visionary ideas of Crenca and Evans had been something that had been conspicuously missing from the failed proposal that the city of Providence had submitted to the U.S. Department of Transportation in the efforts to win $50 million in the Smart City competition. Columbus, Ohio, was recently named the winner. [See link to ConvergenceRI story below.]

As a result, Crenca was keyed up to talk when we met at the AS220 Gallery. With his distinctive shaved head and flowing goatee, Crenca is very much the antithesis of corporate fashion and newspeak: he will never be mistaken for a wind-up Ken doll, in thought, action or vision, much to his credit.

In his rapid-fire delivery, Crenca dished to ConvergenceRI about his 31 years of work at AS220, the ongoing collaborations in communities in East Los Angeles and Memphis, the need to break away from thinking about “the big score” within a four-year electoral cycle and instead focus on smaller investments that look to the long-term and reward local talent and initiative.

Crenca also talked about being humbled by the resilience of the young people he works with, and the evolution that happened when they were empowered to tell their own story and take control of their own narrative.

“The resilience of these kids is profound,” Crenca told ConvergenceRI. “Kids who are operating in some significantly dire conditions, who show up every day and make art with us with a smile, with a sense of community and a positive-ness that humbles the hell out of me.”

Crenca praised their courage and their adaptability. “How quickly they learn when they are given an opportunity to learn, and when they’re given an opportunity to follow [their] passion.”

I hate to use the word validation, Crenca added, but in some sense, it has applications. “Just being recognized that you have a perspective, and it’s an important perspective, just telling them that, and then giving them some tools and resources to allow them to take control of their own narrative, it’s profound and powerful.”

Two years ago, in March of 2014, in an earlier interview, ConvergenceRI and Crenca had talked about the potential of having the watchword of the AS220 youth programs, “Hateration gets no toleration,” installed at the entrance to the walkway connecting the downtown with the reclaimed Route 195 land. [See link to ConvergenceRI story below.]

What would it take to get it done? ConvergenceRI asked.

“We could always go in the middle of the night and paste it up,” Crenca said, with a laugh. “I’ll tell you, I’ve got a bad back, I’ve gotten a little old for these interventions.”

He told the story of how he had been part of a recent intervention in Los Angeles, where community activists had put up a big sign, in response to a developer bulldozing a 15-acre community garden. The 50-foot letters, in Spanish, said: We’re still here.

What does it take? Crenca said, repeating the question, and then answering: “I think we [need to] go back to some 1960s-esque techniques, organizing and intervening, I really do. I think it’s coming to that.”

Here is the ConvergenceRI interview with Umberto “Bert” Crenca, the visionary founder of AS220.

ConvergenceRI: What did you and Barnaby Evans talk about on the panel at the GrowSmartRI conference?
CRENCA: Creative development. How do we make stuff happen, and what are the obstacles, and how do we get past some of this stuff. How can we improve on, from the municipal point of view – codes and zoning. How do we work more cooperatively with local and small businesses and help folks scale up, things like that.

ConvergenceRI: Is there a divide in how cities think about investments, short-term vs. long term, and downtown vs. neighborhoods?
CRENCA: What I was talking about on the panel is the way that many of our leaders think, in terms of four-year cycles. They want to make a big score; they don’t want to make the long-term investment, over time, in the local assets, and the local businesses and entrepreneurs.

Even with some of the tax incentive and tax credit programs, they have a bottom cap of $5 million or something.

A $3 million project with a community could be hugely significant, such as the renovation of a building in a significant location in Providence.

There really doesn’t seem to be an understanding of the value in local assets, the human resources and intelligence and experiences that people bring [to the table], and the potential.

You can [invest] $75 million for one project, or have 75 $1 million grants, and even if you have a 50 percent failure rate, it’s a big win.

It’s about the kind of thinking and coordinating of resources in a framework that supports local collaboration. That takes work, that takes initiative, and you’re not going to get a big bang for your buck overnight.

You have to think about the long-term sustainability of the community and the neighborhoods, about how do we empower those communities, how do we involve people in the decision-making and the evolution of those communities.

ConvergenceRI: Last week I wrote a story about competing narratives around the future vision of cities, and a $50 million competition, Smart City, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation. What do you see happening in cities today?
CRENCA: There was this thing called “white flight.” We built the highways and malls, and everybody moved out of the cities. Now, there’s a lot of creative place-making ideas and smart growth, we want to re-invent our cities.

Everybody feels like they lost something, and they want to get it back: easy access to culture and diversity and things.

But guess what? They want to move back in, but there are people who [already] live here.

How do we think about securing space and place and home ownership for the people who are here, as we begin to re-imagine cities and get all excited about that?

Because a lot of communities are getting gentrified.

I’ve worked in Memphis, Tennessee, where folks in that neighborhood can’t walk to [get] a bottle of milk.

I’m working with a community in East LA, with a group called Self-Help Graphics, where generations of Mexican-Americans who have lived in this community, who have thrived in this community, and they are getting priced out of the city.

Why does it have to be that way? Where are all these people going to go? That’s what I’m curious about.

ConvergenceRI: Is there a better way to think about this, in terms of Rhode Island?
CRENCA: Yes. I think there are more visionary, better ways to think about this stuff.
And, I’m not sure that we’re [employing] any of those best practices.

I think it requires visionary leadership; and I’m not convinced that it is in place.

There are new voices that we haven’t heard from at all, voices that we need to provide opportunities to be heard in forums, for the new, young, next generation to come up and to have some ownership in the way we imagine our futures in cities and communities.

ConvergenceRI: How has the new kinds of development by AS220 broadened your footprint in Providence? How is AS220 changing?
CRENCA: We have broadened our footprint, even if the new buildings are close by. I think that AS220 is at a very critical moment right now.

We are going through a transition in leadership and a whole variety of transitions now. We are taking stock of what it is going to take to prepare future generations of leadership at AS220 that sets them up for success, not failure.

We have kind of maxed out, in terms of revenue generation. We need to rally the local, regional and national people to help us situate this organization so that it’s sustainable in the future.

I’m hoping to be able to lead that charge. Things like: retirement, creating an endowment, investments in infrastructure, [financial] reserves for our buildings. Those kinds of things will ensure that AS220 will continue to provide opportunities for the next generation.

I feel a huge responsibility to make sure that happens. I’ve been doing this for 31 years at AS220, and I’ve just recently handed off the baton.

I’m still working for this place. I feel a very strong obligation to leave the organization in a better position than it is right now. So that it is secure, moving into the future.

We own our buildings. But, right now, cash flow for us over the last few years has been tighter and tighter and tighter.

Expenses go up all the time, and with earned revenue possibilities, in some cases, there is a ceiling.

How are we going to make sure that the next generation of young people, who are not satisfied with the status quo, are going to have opportunities to push back and to have conversations and dialogue? That’s my challenge.

ConvergenceRI: Your work has been honored, with honorary degrees from Brown and Roger Williams universities, and most recently, at the White House. Can you talk a bit about the event at the White House?
CRENCA: Wow. It was a very interesting experience. I always approach these things from the perspective of an anthropologist, to try and unravel the culture mentally.

Once you get past the Secret Service, there’s a lot to take in. This is the center of the government of the most powerful country in the world.

ConvergenceRI: Did you feel like you were trespassing?
CRENCA: Just a little bit. It’s funny. The West Wing of the White House, I don’t know if you’ve ever been there, but it’s kind of a pretty humble environment. It’s kind of warm and cozy. It wasn’t ostentatious and it wasn’t over the top, although there was some pretty cool artwork and architecture.

ConvergenceRI: Were you anxious? How was it different from other talks and presentations you’ve given and honors you’ve received?
CRENCA: They asked me to do 20 slides, 15 seconds each. I had to tell a 30-year story in five minutes. I had to condense all of that history and all of the ideas around this place. Frankly, that made me anxious.

I was less anxious or intimidated by where I was, as opposed to what was expected of me.

ConvergenceRI: What was your message?
CRENCA: I spoke to our work. I talked about the need to create more places and spaces and policies and practices around supporting the organic and the local.

We have ideas about how you do that, based upon our practices and what we’ve accomplished, about what it takes to provide the opportunities for communities to self-actualize.

Not someone coming in from the outside and telling communities what they need, but actually working from the inside to uncover the opportunities.

ConvergenceRI: There are a couple of new projects that are being developed from inside the community. Have you visited the Sankofa Community Initiative in the West End, where they are building new affordable housing surrounding by an urban farm and a new marketplace?
CRENCA: No. Where is it?

ConvergenceRI: Off Dexter Street.
CRENCA: Oh my god. That sounds exciting. That’s amazing.

ConvergenceRI: There’s also a new Neighborhood Health Station being built in Central Falls, in collaboration with the Blackstone Valley Community Health Care community health center.
CRENCA: Michael Fine’s work. Yes, I was on an informal advisory panel at the beginning of that. But I bowed out because I just got too busy. But I’m a big fan of Michael.

You know, we’ve produced some pretty good community health centers. The Neighborhood Health Station, it’s a little bit different, it’s a little more holistic, and I Michael’s also got a way that he thinks it can pay for itself.

ConvergenceRI: They will be constructing a new building in Central Falls, in collaboration with Blackstone Valley…
CRENCA: …and you were about to ask me: what should the arts and culture piece be? That’s a good question. I should raise that with them.

I think you raise a very interesting issue. I don’t believe that Michael and I ever talked about that. In terms of the health station, I think it would be a good conversation.

ConvergenceRI: Is there a difference in investment, whether you invest in a company or you invest in a community? Take the decision by GE to locate part of its new digital division in Providence, with $5.6 million in incentives.
CRENCA: I don’t know enough about that project to be able to speak to it. I don’t think we need to throw out the baby with the bath water.

But, I think that more investment in communities will create an environment that supports and sustains local entrepreneurial activity, because you’re creating stronger, healthier communities.

With some of the large businesses that may want to relocate somewhere, we know that, historically, there’s plenty of statistics, we know that there’s no loyalty.

We know that five years later, if they get a better deal in North Carolina, they’re out, and they leave.

We know that, yet we do it over and over and over again.

We keep looking for the big fix. Why?

It’s because of the politicians – the politicians that are going to be around for four years, and they want to be able to claim [that they created] 200 jobs and a $50 million construction project.

The other kinds of investments that you’re talking about, about building strong communities and empowering communities, it’s not necessarily happening in a nice, neat, two-year or three-year time frame.

And, it goes back to my original thoughts about the need to have visionary leadership.

ConvergenceRI: How would you define visionary leadership?
CRENCA: Visionary leaders are people who are not defensive, who do not have to have their name on everything, who are more interested in understanding best practices and are not threatened by them. And, they are willing, to listen to the local community and to people who are making it happen, and who have been in the trenches for years.

And, who are looking globally to best practices and best applications, whether you’re talking about health care, access to food, housing, any of that stuff.

There’s remarkable stuff going on in Medellin, in Colombia, because there’s visionary leadership. It can come from anywhere.

It really has to do with visionary leadership. When I define visionary leadership, it is really a kind of openness, and intelligence, a willingness to understand that this is about the long haul.

It is about [a willingness to embrace] a comprehensive platform that is inclusive of all the issues, from housing, public education, transportation and agriculture, all of these thing, and not to be afraid to look at best practices and say: this is working, this is what we need to think about, employing a version of it.

[To say], I don’t have the resources right now, but that doesn’t prevent us from visioning the optimum.

Then you can worry about the steps, how you’re going to resource these things, rather than to be afraid of the conversation around what could be best practices.

Because when we have a vision, then you can invest those resources in more a holistic way for the community.

But, if you go willy-nilly, a piece-meal approach, if everything is about your own branding of it, and ego, your name has got to be on it, and you’re threatened by the local people who have been in the trenches, or you’re threatened by outside ideas and visions…

To me, I don’t think it’s one way or another, or either-or.

There are great examples [of best practices] that many of our leaders could learn from.

ConvergenceRI: What have you learned most from your engagement with younger people? How do they push you? How do they make you more creative?
CRENCA: A lot of the stories we hear from the young people we work with, it’s difficult to hear some the stories, the way they get treated, it could be by the cops, it could be a home situation, their struggles at school.

It’s difficult to hear when a kid shows up and says he doesn’t know where he’s going to sleep that night. It’s difficult to hear when a kid tells us that he hasn’t eaten for two days.

We want to do art with him, but the kid hasn’t eaten for two days…

That said, the resilience of these kids is profound, kids who are operating in some significantly dire conditions, who show up every day and make art with us, with a smile, a sense of community, and a positive-ness and a way of contributing that humbles the hell out of me.

And, the young people that I know worldwide, from India or Pakistan or South Korea, who want to go back to their countries and create places like this, where there can be a community dialogue and an art performance and a place to share [ideas], in countries where they could be putting their life at risk, to open such a space where conversation can happen.

There were these young women I met who were killed for trying to have such a place.

The courage of some of these young people, the resilience of some of these young people, their adaptability, how quickly they learn when they are given an opportunity to learn, and when they’re given an opportunity to follow [their] passion.

And, the courage of some of these young people, the resilience, of some of these young people, their adaptability.

I hate to use the word, validation, but in some sense, it has some applications. Just being recognized that you have a perspective, and that it’s an important perspective. Just telling them that and then giving them some tools and resources to allow them to take control of their own narrative, it’s profound and powerful.

ConvergenceRI: Last time when we talked, you had a poster about the rules for the AS220 youth workshops, entitled, “Hateration gets no toleration.”
CRENCA: It’s still up there.

ConvergenceRI: And we discussed: wouldn’t that be a great thing to put at the entrance of the walkway connecting downtown Providence with the newly redeveloped Route 195 land. What would it take to get that done?
CRENCA: [laughing] We could always go in the middle of the night and paste it up. I’ll tell you, I’ve got a bad back. I’ve gotten a little old for these interventions.

I was just welcomed to participate in an intervention in Los Angeles, where we broke through a fence and put up this big sign, on land that had been a 15-acre community garden that got bulldozed by a development corporation.

So, we broke in, and had 50-foot letters, in Spanish, that said: “We’re still here,” something to that effect. And we had a helicopter photograph the whole thing.

So, what does it take? I think we’re going to have to go back to some 1960s-esque techniques. I really do. I think it’s coming to that.

I think a lot of people want to move back into cities, and people are being displaced. I think that unless people begin to organize and get loud, God only knows what’s going to happen.

ConvergenceRI: In two days, you’re going to draw for 30 hours. What’s that about?
CRENCA: The initial idea was to celebrate our 30th anniversary. We actually are 31 years old now. And, also, it will bring attention to the AS220 youth program.

And, it’s about my need as an artist to periodically do endurance kinds of pieces. It’s a challenge.

I mean, God only knows, I’ll probably collapse after the 20th hour, I have no idea, but I like to challenge myself, to see if I can do it.

And, in tandem, to bring attention to supporting AS220 and its youth programming.

ConvergenceRI: Anything I haven’t asked you that you would like to talk about? The last word?
CRENCA: I enjoyed the conversation with you, Richard. I like that you are trying to provoke these kinds of conversations.