Down and Out in the Big Easy
“Homeless outreach!” calls out Mike Miller as he ducks through a busted wall to climb the steps of an abandoned house in New Orleans’...
What Black Panther-inspired Gift to Oakland Should Have Looked Like
Disney's Black Panther-inspired gift to Oakland children is great, but there is a way it could be better.
Revitalizing Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine (Series Conclusion – Making It Green)
This is the final installment of my miniseries (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3) about Cincinnati’s remarkable Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, potentially a national model...
Can Banksy Make New York City Affordable Again?
Earlier this month Shelterforce posted a conversation about gentrification that posed many different questions about the term and its role in community...
Managing Neighborhood Change
This report presents a strategic framework that can help practitioners and policymakers foster sustainable and equitable neighborhood revitalization, building on solid market demand while ensuring that the neighborhood’s lower-income households will benefit from the changes that have taken place.
What Is NIMBYism and How Do Affordable Housing Developers Respond to It?
NIMBYism is often expressed as concerns about crime, congestion, schools, property values, and “quality of life.” But when developments are built these fears rarely come to pass.
An Urban School Reduces Violence . . . With Nonviolence
When students feel like they are in jail when at school and the adults around them consider them all potential...
Tales of Three Cities
Even after neighboring Hoboken turned from working-class enclave to exclusive high-cost outpost, some think that will never happen to Newark...
Gentrification and the “Slums of Beverly Hills”
In 1998, when Slums of Beverly Hills was released, I lived in West Los Angeles, relatively near (in LA...
The Cultural Ramifications of Gentrification in New Orleans
Gentrification is not just physical displacement; it’s cultural appropriation across entire neighborhoods. Artists have an obligation not to participate.
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.
We Are All NIMBYs…Sometimes
If we built enough housing, we would still need subsidized housing for many people, but market prices would be low enough that most people could afford them. But we’ve chosen not to. And the reason we give for that choice, more than any other, is that we are trying to preserve or improve the character of our communities.
It Takes a Village to Age In Place
A major challenge that has come with sprawl over the last half-century has been that growing up, maturing, and growing older has required, more...
Interview with George McCarthy, President of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy
After 14 years at the Ford Foundation, George "Mac" McCarthy became the fifth president of the 41-year-old Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
Can Calling Attention to Gentrification Make Things Worse?
In early march, when Austin was enduring the annual South-by-Southwest festival, Facebook user Briana Smith stunned the world by announcing that the city of...
Who Most Needs Access to Core Neighborhoods?
We have a limited number of dense core neighborhoods where getting around without a car and without a lengthy daily commute are possible.
D.C. Population Rises While Crime Plummets
New end-of-year data confirm what some of us have been reporting for a long time: central cities in the U.S. are no longer in...
Chicago Activist Convention Shifts Focus to Community Benefits Campaign
Standing on a truck in front of a group of several hundred protesters, Tom Gordon expressed a feeling shared often at the ONE Northside...
Above the Fray?
As the school reform debates rage on, community groups struggle to stay out of the politics and yet keep influencing the quality of education in their neighborhoods.
Two Paths to Density: Profit vs People
As communities across the country begin promoting density to address the affordable housing crisis, they must grapple with how that housing will be built, and for whom.