Vacant Storefronts: They’re Not Just For Ghost Towns Anymore
From the City of Millville way down in South Jersey to Morristown up in the northern state suburbs, downtowns across New Jersey are approaching...
Evergreen Cooperatives Sows Sustainable Jobs with New Greenhouse
If my food shopping habits can in any way predict the success of the latest Evergreen Cooperatives initiative than they're in luck.
Every year I...
HUD Announces NSP2 Grants
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced this morning the long-awaited list of grantees for the second round of the Neighborhood Stabilization...
Creating an Economic Development Policy Infrastructure
The last dozen years have witnessed the emergence of Community Development Corporations (CDCs) as leading developers of affordable housing in severely distressed urban and...
Making Sense of the New Economy: Rethinking Community Economic Development
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An Industrial Revolution Comes to Indianapolis
Abandoned factories have been an economic albatross for Midwestern cities since the 1990s, when American manufacturers moved overseas or...
Where Do We Go From Here? Toward a New Freedom Budget
If, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, a “budget is a moral document,” then this budget is a reflection of the moralities of the boardroom, the eviction notice, the emergency ward, and the pink slip.
Fighting for Their Hometown in The Place That Makes Us
A review of the 2020 documentary, The Place That Makes Us, directed by Karla Murthy. 70 minutes.
Help for Small Businesses
What kinds of emergency measures are advocacy organizations proposing to make sure that when small businesses can open again, they’ll be financially able to do so?
How CDFIs are Helping Small Businesses Create Good Jobs
Community development financial institutions lend to micro- and small-business owners, but the jobs those businesses create are often minimum wage, part time, or otherwise low quality. What makes a job a good job, and what are CDFIs doing to help small-business borrowers create good jobs?
Hubs Help Move the Local Food Movement to the Next Level
It’s not unusual to read a press release from a governor’s or mayor’s office celebrating a deal to bring a new company to a neighborhood or city. Typically we’d be talking about a new manufacturing or tech firm, and the press release would speak glowingly of the prospects for economic development. Which makes a bit […]
Continuing the Dream
New Communities Inc. was the largest African-American owned parcel of land in the United States the late 1960s. For more than 15 years, it survived attempts at sabotage and other challenges thanks to the collective efforts of as many as 500 families.
How One City Is Keeping Jobs Local Using Co-ops
In 1971, the owners of The Cheese Board turned their Berkeley, California, mom-and-pop shop into a co-op, where they...
Is 2012 the Year of the Business Co-op?
Last October in New York City, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon officially designated 2012 as the “International Year...
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...
Unlocking Community Development: The Anchor Key
Anchor institutions—a term used to describe public and nonprofit hospitals and universities—are today widely recognized for their role in community...
Uber-noxious
At the PolicyLink Equity Summit the last week of October, Orson Aguilar of the Greenlining Institute was taking a...
Tracking Job Creation in the Nonprofit Sector
Rick Cohen, a long-time Shelterforce contributor and editor of The Nonprofit Quarterly‘s “Cohen Report” wrote last week on the importance of nonprofits tracking their...
You’re Gonna Change the Economy? How, Exactly?
If people were surprised at how skeptical voters in the recent West Virginia Democratic primary were of Barack Obama’s casting himself as the candidate...
Investing in Communities Key to Obamanomics
With the Dems convening in Denver, the New York Times Magazine offered us David Leonhardt’s review of ‘Advanced Obamanomics’ on Sunday, August 24. In...