David Boucher and partner Stephanie Shipley recently celebrated the 14th anniversary of their business, Amaranth Bakery and Cafe in the Washington Park neighborhood. Amaranth is more than a place to have a cup of homemade soup and bread. It is a community gathering space, a place where anyone can feel at home, can take a breath, can get to know strangers and neighbors. Indeed, Amaranth is near and dear to our project, the site of some of our earliest meetings and a providential run-in with Arijit Sen, a professor at UWM who became one of our project’s advisers. Now an integral figure in the area, David has forged deep relationships with other business owners, organizations, creators and residents around him. He has seen a lot of change, but he’s also seen gains slip away, as investment in the neighborhood comes and goes, based on the political winds, he says. He arrived in Milwaukee in the 1990s, “not that long after cryptosporidium and Jeffrey Dahmer.” The city’s struggles from that era still haunt leadership today, he says.