News From The Tope

Can you imagine an inner city neighborhood in which crime, drug use, and gang violence is nearly non-existent? Can you imagine a low-income community where children, parents, teachers, and corporations team together to create opportunities for learning and career building? Can you imagine an urban place where the residents are enabled to take personal and communal responsibility for maintaining their own safety, health, and economic well-being? Can you envision a place where workforce housing is so affordable that everyone on the block owns their own home? Well, luckily, you don't have to, because Dave Ermini has already done it for you! News From The Tope is a story of urban renewal and rebirth, set in a revitalized but anonymous American inner city neighborhood. It describes a process and set of principles that can be used by any neglected locale to transform itself into a thriving and reinvigorated community. Described through the eyes of one of the residents of The Tope it is the inner city that we all wish we had. The story begins with a dialogue between four friends, discussing some of the problems that modern cities now face. These four people represent a microcosm of the various disparate viewpoints that Americans seem to have balkanized into - all hurling accusations and dogmatic beliefs at one another, while refusing to actually work out a solution between them. They decide to have a refreshingly honest conversation about what is ailing their city: Mike the corporate conservative, Alex the liberal academician, Frank the insensitive blue-collar working stiff, and Dave, the pragmatic narrator, who finally describes a path out of the madness. Part instruction book, part modern day utopian novel, in the truest sense of that word, News From The Tope will certainly cause readers to rethink how an urban renaissance can be accomplished in modern day America. If nothing else, this book may start a long overdue conversation which desperately needs to occur in the U.S. and elsewhere. Interestingly, the book is written in such a way that the reader is left unsure whether the place that Dave describes is a real one or one that resides purely in his imagination. But as Dave says, "In the end, you will just have to come and see the place for yourself!"