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.
Q: Do Section 8 voucher holders increase crime in a neighborhood?
A: No! This is a perennial fear, but research shows that additional voucher holders don't change the crime rate at all. However it does show that . . .
Detroit as a Test Site of the Green Future
Recently a group of planners, including long-time NHI researcher Alan Mallach, visited Detroit to survey the city’s vast vacant spaces...
The Gentrification Vaccine
Can a neighborhood be immune to gentrification? If so, can local governments and community organizations work together to build up that kind of immunity...
The Best Thing I Didn’t Hear All Week
I'm in Lexington, Ky., this week for the National Community Land Trust Network conference, hosted by the Lexington Community Land Trust.
The Lexington CLT had...
Revitalizing Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine (Part 2)
Last week I wrote the first installment of my miniseries about Cincinnati’s remarkable Over-the-Rhine neighborhood. As I wrote then, this distinct and historic...
Myths and Misconceptions About Demolition in Cleveland
Demolition can generate emotional reactions, especially in places with a history of urban renewal. But critics of demolishing any vacant homes are ignoring the evidence.
Public Land Should be Used for Public Good
When a vacant lot in Oakland was close to becoming the home of a 24-story, market-rate development, local activists worked together to prevent it from happening.
It’s Not Actually About Ownership
Private Property and Public Power: Eminent Domain in Philadelphia,
by Debbie Becher. Oxford University Press, 2014. 334pp. $30.50 (paper)
Purchase here.
NOLA Brings a Holistic Focus to Resilience
Cities cannot weather the effects of climate change without going beyond infrastructure to address institutional racism, historical inequities, and access to physical and mental health services.
Seattle Neighborhood Planning
At first glance, the Neighborhood Planning Program in Seattle, Washington, sounds like a remarkably progressive idea. Begun in 1995, the program is one of...
Art in the Face of Gentrification
Four representatives of New York City organizations discuss their employment of art and artists to empower residents in the face of gentrification.
Community Development and School Reform: Odd Bedfellows?
In my couple decades hanging around the community development field, I can’t count the number of times conversations about...
It’s Not Either/Or: Neighborhood Improvement Can Prevent Gentrification
Even where gentrification is only a distant threat (or hope, depending on your perspective) it looms large in any discussion of neighborhood change.
Another Day in the Lower Ninth Ward
Sweat pours down Reginald “Trigger” Smith’s face as he cleans out a storage unit squeezed next to three FEMA trailers on his lot in...
Tales of Three Cities
The poster child for gentrification in the eastern U.S. is Hoboken, NJ. A 15-minute subway ride from midtown Manhattan, for decades it was a...
Millennials, Revisited
As both Joe Cortright of the City Observatory and I have written, Millennials—people who have reached adulthood since the beginning of the millennium—and...
Is “Sustainability” Old Hat?
Americans have treated the word “sustainability” as though everyone practices sustainability daily and the concept is old hat. We should know better.
Revitalizing Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine (Part 3 – the Progress)
This was going to be the final installment of my miniseries about Cincinnati’s remarkable Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, but I’m on too much of a roll...
“No Evictions. We Won’t Move!”
"This land is too valuable to permit poor people to park on it."
-Justin Herman, former executive director of the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, 1970
The...