| The Community Outreach Partnership Center (COPC) at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana, is administered by the Center for Citizenship and Community (CCC), a university center that coordinates community-based efforts to stop the deterioration of local neighborhoods. CCC is targeting its COPC activities in the Butler-Tarkington neighborhood near Butler. This neighborhood is characterized by rising criminal activity, deteriorating housing, declining property values, lack of coordinated land-use planning, few economic development funding activities, and public schools that are challenged to meet the needs of more "at risk" children. In coordinating COPC activities, CCC is taking an "Urban Husbandry" approach, which recognizes that the Butler-Tarkington neighborhood has important assets that should not be displaced or destroyed, but rather nurtured and preserved. Neighborhood resources include the Children's Museum of Indiana, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Butler University, and numerous churches that have already been active in the area's revitalization. The COPC is working with the Martin Luther King Multi-Service Center and the Butler-Tarkington Neighborhood Association, one of the nation's oldest neighborhood associations. Its activities focus on education and research, neighborhood revitalization, crime prevention, and housing.
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