Vacant properties are a serious problem in two kinds of neighborhoods. To address them, we need to know which kind we’re looking at.
Transforming Vacant Land Into Community Assets
Vacant land activities can be low cost and high impact; the price of failure is not steep, but the return on investment can be high.
Smaller Cities Are Laboratories for Change
In smaller cities it is typically much easier to engage high levels of leadership, get traction for strategies that are more visible, engage the wider community, build trust, and scale solutions more quickly than in larger areas. Here are a few examples.
Challenges of Space and Place in Creative Placemaking
Some of us, myself included, are susceptible to the inaccurate thinking that when the arts are involved, the complications that can arise with traditional community building are lessened.
What Anchor Institutions Can Do by Working Together
Anchor institutions are beginning to realize that they face similar challenges and, by joining forces, can accomplish goals that once seemed out of reach.
Q: Did the housing crisis prove low-income people can’t be successful...
No! Two at-scale, long-term lending programs show that if the process is done right, low-income homeowners can be as successful as prime borrowers--or more.
“You’re Not Colored”: The Story of Two Civil Rights Activists of...
We heard about Ed Nakawatase and Tamio Wakayama's experiences as volunteers with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the American civil rights movement, and the extraordinariness of their witness to the history happening at the time compelled us to pursue a conversation.
Public Land Should be Used for Public Good
When a vacant lot in Oakland was close to becoming the home of a 24-story, market-rate development, local activists worked together to prevent it from happening.
Can Cities Fix Their Polarization Problem? A Review of The Divided...
How different would cities look and how different would people’s lives be if those with the power to set policy and invest resources prioritized the most vulnerable residents and the neighborhoods they live in?
(The Urgent Case for) Middle Neighborhoods, One of the Most Overlooked Assets in America
Middle neighborhoods are places where home prices are generally affordable to the average household. But, these neighborhoods are often on the edge between growth and decline.
A Community-Centered Perspective on Displacement
In some communities, diverse economic networks have been and remain critical to the ability of community members to survive and thrive.
There’s Opportunity in Vacancy
Thinking of abandoned properties as merely problems we wish would go away feeds into some of the less productive ways vacant properties have been handled.
State Policies Play a Central Role in the Fight Against Vacant Property
Abandoned and vacant properties seem like a quintessentially local problem. But state policies have a huge effect on how well municipalities can fight it.
Making a Pipeline for Vacant Building Rehab
Baltimore’s Vacants to Value program sparked revitalization block by block with a few key legal powers and partnerships.
How to Fight Vacancy? Do It All
The fight against vacancy in Youngstown, Ohio, shows us that we shouldn’t rely on a single strategy—everything is needed at once.
Condemning Asthma, Not Homes in North Carolina
An apartment complex in North Carolina generated 120 times as many hospital visits as would have been expected for its population, until a creative coalition forced its sale and worked with the new owner to change things.
How to Fund Land Banks
The number of land banks grew dramatically in the wake of the foreclosure crisis. So has our understanding of how to successfully fund them.
Greening Vacant Lots: Low Cost, Big Effect in Philly
A Philadelphia program is cleaning up abandoned lots, helping formerly incarcerated residents get jobs, and improving the overall health and well-being of neighborhoods.
The Mission: End Childhood Lead Poisoning in Rochester
In the 1990s, Rochester, New York, had an alarmingly large number of children who had elevated lead levels in their blood. Decades later, the rate has decreased by 85 percent. This is how a local coalition made it happen.