| As recently as 40 years ago, the Central South neighborhood of Macon, Georgia was a stable, relatively prosperous, mixed-race neighborhood. However, the Central South neighborhood has been deteriorating for a number of years as middle-class residents have moved out of the inner city, as owner-occupied hous-ing has become rental property when elderly owners die, and as dilapidated housing has been aban-doned, demolished, or burned. At the same time, Central South still has important assets and resources to aid in its revitalization: numerous churches, two elementary schools, two Boys and Girls Club facilities, an active public housing tenants association, and a new and promising neighborhood association. The Community Outreach Partnership Center at Mercer University is designed as a demonstration to initiate the revitalization of Central South and to serve as a model for inner-city residential redevelopment in other Macon neighborhoods and for other mid-size cities across the country. The grant is administered by the Mercer Center for Community Development (MCCD), which has been working for several years to join Mercer University's human and financial resources with those of other community institutions in order to revitalize Central South. MCCD aims to increase neighborhood involvement, decrease the level of crime, raise the educational achievement level, improve the housing stock, and increase the level of homeownership in the neighborhood. There is a growing sense of confidence among the COPC partners - including city and county government agencies, neighborhood associations, and local schools - that long-standing problems can be addressed and a different future for Central South can be created.
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