In its heyday, the Central Avenue district of Los Angeles was the heart and soul of the city's African-American community. But the outward migration of middle-class blacks and influx of new immigrants have almost erased the neighborhood's cultural heritage.

Preserving the jazz-inflected cultural and historical legacy of African Americans in the Central Avenue community and, at the same time, providing economic opportunities, affordable housing, health and other social services for the newcomers has become a challenge taken on by anthropology Ph.D. student Reginald Chapple.

Chapple, who also earned his master's in urban planning from UCLA, first tackled the needs of this community in 1991 as an intern in the Dunbar Economic Development Corporation (EDC), established by longtime area residents to revitalize Central Avenue. Their plan was to create affordable housing, jobs and business opportunities for community residents as well as preserve Central Avenue's historic centerpiece, the Dunbar Hotel.

A decade later, "everything we set out to do in the initial strategic plan has been realized," said Chapple, now executive director of the Dunbar EDC.

Once restored, the Dunbar Hotel helped rejuvenate the rest of the community. A museum and commercial space were added to it, and its apartments were outfitted with computers and wired for Internet access. Two other affordable-housing projects were also built, complete with a health clinic, child-care center and senior-service program for tenants.

Because of his successes and his ties to UCLA, the community leader recently joined faculty and former Vice President Al Gore, now a UCLA visiting professor, for a symposium to create a curriculum for a family-centered, community-de-vel-opment course, which Gore will teach at several universities.

Chapple isn't willing to rest on his laurels. He and graduate students in UCLA's Advanced Policy Institute in the School of Public Policy and Social Research are working together to help teens from the Ralph J. Bunche Youth Leadership Academy of Dunbar EDC become more aware of, and find ways to further develop, their community while also gaining crucial leadership and technological training.

Using Geographic Information System software, the young people are identifying community assets and deficits and placing them on an online map of their neighborhood. The information has been used to turn a vacant lot across the street from the Dunbar Hotel into a park, which has become a gathering place for families and the home stage for the annual Central Avenue Jazz Festival. Mapping has also helped pinpoint social and historical sites and structures of the Vernon-Central area.

The leadership academy is now working on finding new sites for public schools that are free of toxic-waste contamination and located near other local community assets. In this way, said Chapple, youths are taking part in the decision-making about where new schools should be located.

Chapple's advice to these students and others interested in community development is to first understand what community development really means. "It's more than housing and commercial development; it involves people. You've got to look at who makes up the community as a whole and train yourself to meet their needs."