Why Should “Community Development” Only Be Urban?
“I'm tired of feeling rural America is so alone,” said Lisa Mensah, USDA Under Secretary for Rural Development to the attendees at the Rural Housing Summit hosted at the Federal […]
Mixing It Up
Compared to the worst examples of urban design that have physically isolated low-income families, mixed-income housing seems like an intuitively healthier, more equitable way to go about designing neighborhoods.
Two Presidential Affordable Housing Platforms!
Though they haven’t made them central to their campaign, Clinton and Sanders have each released affordable housing platforms.
Harvard Planners Talk Race, Design, and St. Louis
In our recent interview with long-time urban planner and racial equity advocate Chester Hartman, he told us he thought that urban planning programs were not “taking race and poverty into […]
Two Sneaky Reasons Why Building More Housing Isn’t Helping
The discussion about how much building more housing will help with affordability, and the nuances of the neighborhood and regional effects and what to do about them is alive and […]
Interview with Chester Hartman, Radical Urban Planner
As he retires, the founder of the Poverty and Race Research Action Council reflects on the fields of urban planning, community development, and fair housing.
Matthew Desmond’s “Evicted” Supports, Challenges Housing Field
With Evicted, Desmond is taking a powerful argument that housing matters beyond the usually circles where that is discussed.
So, About That Anti-Inclusionary “Study”
Last week, I submitted the following letter to the editor of the LA Times in response to a vicious, and more importantly, extremely misleading op-ed, decrying inclusionary housing as a development […]
Community Development and the School Reform Fight
In the community development field there are innumerable conversations about improving a struggling neighborhood or moving toward economic equity that have been ended abruptly by the observation, “Well, but it […]
Attitudes Toward Exploited Cities Helped Poison Flint
Flint’s water crisis started long before corrosive river water starting running through its pipes. Though there’s no question that those who signed off on the decisions and covered up the […]
Rich Neighborhood in NYC Actually Gets a “Noxious” Use
A core environmental justice fight has long been the fair distribution of necessary nuisance uses throughout a city. Poor neighborhoods tend to be over-burdened with unpleasant parts of public infrastructure […]
Uber-noxious
At the PolicyLink Equity Summit the last week of October, Orson Aguilar of the Greenlining Institute was taking a poll of the room at the workshop on the “Gig Economy.” […]