Expanding the Scope of Community Development
More than four decades of suburban growth have moved demographic, political, and economic power from central cities toward their suburban counties. The change can...
Q: What’s the difference between community economic development and traditional economic development ?
A: A lot! In fact, they are so different that the Democracy Collaborative, which made the chart below, has coined the term “community wealth building” to set apart the truly community-oriented practitioners of economic development.
Filling Commercial Vacancies with Food Pantries
When I tell people that food pantries can be a new and innovative way to help lift up communities, they look at me as...
Are You Subsidizing Big Business?
Massive corporations, not start-ups or local job creators, get the lion's share of state and local development incentives.
Manufactured Locally
While there is much debate about the state of large-scale domestic manufacturing, a few places are quietly supporting local manufacturing for items that have been made overseas for some time, from jewelry to jeans.
Equitable Development in Shaw
A recent New York Times article on the revitalization of Washington, DC’s Shaw neighborhood highlighted how real estate developers have rebranded the area to...
Duty to Serve: A Boon for Shared Equity Homeownership
Shared equity homeownership programs just had a big win.
Small Numbers, Great Expectations: A Case for Rural Investment
“Drop dead” wasn’t an acceptable answer to urban decay in the 1970s. And it isn’t the right answer for struggling rural areas today.
Countrywide Is Not On Your Side
Angelo Mozilo, the Countrywide financial chairman who is arguably the poster child for the current subprime meltdown, just learned the difference between e-mail reply...
Farming With Benefits
One of the many striking commercials that aired during Sunday’s Super Bowl was a celebration of the American farmer, although...
Interview With Tom Szaky, Founder, Terracycle
We spoke with Tom Szaky, TerraCycle's founder and CEO, about social enterprise, locating in a distressed community, and what he as an employer would want out of workforce development programs.
To Build a Community Economy, Start With Solidarity
How residents who can't afford to buy in can still get the benefits of co-op work and housing.
Defining the Creative Economy People
I was pleased to hear at a recent planning workshop that the definition of the creative economy has been expanded. As popularized by Richard...
Placemaking for, and by, Whom?
Place-Making in Legacy Cities: Opportunities and Good Practices, prepared by New Solution Group LLC in partnership with Center for Community Progress, December 2013.
With Rising Property Taxes, Should Non-Profits Now Pay Their “Fair Share”?
It’s tight here in New Jersey.
And it’s because it’s crowded. With 8.7 million people, we are 11th in the country in population, but...
Extending a Bank Branch to the Community
The systemic closing of bank branches in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods is followed by payday lenders, pawnshops, and check cashing services stepping in to fill the void.
Show Up and Be Heard for Rural America
As I was reading recently about China's effort to herd around 250 million farmers and their families from the...
Building Bridges, Building Muscle, Building Momentum
Two cities show how community-based organizations and labor can overcome their historical divide to work together.
A New Way to Finance Equitable Economic Development?
Big companies discovered the long-stagnant Immigrant Investor Program EB-5 after the 2008 financial crisis. Can community developers bend the program toward their goals too?
Jobs and More Jobs:Â Organizing’s Economic Impact
In the report, “Jobs and More Jobs: The Economic Impact of Community Organizing,” Gamaliel community organizers add up $13 billion worth of public and private programs that faith, community, and labor leaders worked to create or save through their advocacy efforts in 2012-13, employing nearly 460,000 people. Using commonly accepted economic formulas to measure the […]