A Love Letter to the Next Decade of Community Development
For a long time, we’ve been too quiet about what’s working and what’s fueling us. But our field has major reasons to be proud; reasons you could miss in the cacophony of daily news.
Financial Coaches, Let’s Be Upfront About Economic Structural Racism
Financial education messaging is too often presented as if individual behavior and attitudes are the cause of our growing economic challenges rather than our social, economic, and political systems.
Beyond a New Rail Stop
Expanding rail lines shouldn't dominate transportation talk. Making improvements to existing transit can make a big difference for low-income households.
Integrating Arts and Culture Strategies into Transit Plans
Three transit projects show how artists, transit agencies, and community groups helped communities envision more equitable outcomes.
Youth Soccer on Transit Land
For the last 30 years, Atlanta nonprofit Soccer in the Streets has been removing the cost barrier to soccer by offering free programs and uniforms. Two years ago, it increased access to the sport by constructing soccer fields on unused land owned by the city’s transit authority.
Redlining Would Be Relegalized by CRA Reform Proposal
In an attempt to make compliance easier for banks, regulators are proposing to incentivize the very thing the Community Reinvestment Act was written to fight.
The Ticket to Opportunity
An Indianapolis-based organization successfully campaigned to bring more funding to the mass transit system in Marion County. How did the organization balance the tension between expanding rail line service and improving bus service, and ensure race was at the forefront of the conversation?
Battling Inequity in Food Systems with Entrepreneurship
A number of leadership organizations and initiatives–from large to small–are working to bring about greater economic opportunity in the food system and improve access to healthy food, focusing specifically on communities of color.
The Problem with On-Demand “Transit”
While having door-to-door service might seem like an answer for areas poorly served by transit, it’s the wrong answer for both equity and ridership.
Bike Lanes Aren’t Just a White Thing
Neighborhoods of color are often more dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists, but they are also often left behind when local officials redesign streets to make them safer. How can we change this?
Using Multiple Community-Based Land Trusts to Save Farmland
Agrarian Commons closely resemble community land trusts, but they are unique in that they work collectively to provide long-term affordable and equitable access of small and mid-sized farms.
Celebrating a Different Definition of “Safety”
Night Out for Safety and Liberation provides an alternative to annual police-sponsored community events, and is growing in popularity around the nation.
Why Opportunity Neighborhoods Aren’t Really for Everyone
Families living in opportunity neighborhoods are seen as actively translating opportunity into real benefits through their actions. But, of course, this is not what really happens.
There Is an Emergency at the Border. It’s Poverty.
Targeted investments that address persistent poverty are necessary and should supersede financial support of a border wall.
Prioritizing Inclusion and Equity in the Next Generation of Mixed-Income Communities
An introduction to a new series of essays on mixed income communities that will comprise the fifth volume in the San Francisco Fed's 'What Works' series.
Using Theater to Envision Racial Equity Solutions
Techniques from the arts world can help us envision and re-envision relationships and systems to spot stress points and opportunities within communities.
Can Using a Racial Equity Lens Increase Capital in Communities of Color?
If CDFIs adopted traditional appraisal standards to determine loan amounts, they'd make very few loans in the communities they were founded to serve.
Disaster Aid Perpetuates Inequality
After natural disasters, recovery efforts tend to lift up those who have resources to bounce back quickly, but cement poverty for those with modest means.
Let’s Get Explicit: Social Justice in Asset Based Community Development
Four Asset Based Community Development practices that support social justice frameworks when practitioners make them explicit and intentional.
Racial Diversity in Community Development Leadership: A Roundtable Discussion on the Field’s Past, and...
Several national organizations in the community development field have experienced transitions from white leadership to people of color.