Neighborhood Change

As community demographics shift and there’s neighborhood change, what are the issues affecting longstanding and new residents alike? When is change desirable, and when is it undesirable, and how can it be turned to the benefit of those who need it most?

The Gentrification Reality: A Response

We must continue studying and fighting gentrification, rather than abandon the concept altogether.

Small is Beautiful – Again

The shrinking cities movement imagines revitalization without growth - and housing advocates take a hard look at what that means for the poor.

Defensible Space

In the Five Oaks community of Dayton, Ohio, during 1991, violent crimes increased by 77 percent, robberies by 77 percent, vandalism by 38 percent, and overall crime by 16 percent. Drug dealers, pimps, and...

Where Community Is at Work Making Itself

Creating and proctecting third places in low-income communities. A conversation with May Louie, Neeraj Mehta, Ken Reardon, and Chuck Wolfe.

Talking Gentrification: Shelterforce Joins Shot & Chaser Podcast

What does gentrification mean? Is there anything that can stop it? Shelterforce's Miriam Axel-Lute joins the Shot & Chaser podcast to talk all things gentrification.

Author Roundtable

Shelterforce authors discuss the roles of place, mobility, and displacement on health and neighborhoods.

3 Things for Nonprofits to Remember About Abandoned Properties

“'Do nothing' is not an option.” So says Jerry Flach, construction project director at Paterson Habitat for Humanity, of the need to take action on New Jersey's vacant and abandoned properties as means for revitalization...

Still Learning, After All These Years

How do we build the next generation of leaders? There are many local initiatives on which communities and colleges could better partner in our collective striving to improve lives and the economic health of families.
A sprawling white “hipster” is memorialized against a backdrop of romanticized visions of blight in a mural that dominates an intersection in the historically Black 7th Ward in New Orleans.

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.

Who Is It For?

A Washington, D.C. nonprofit undertakes a redevelopment project and tackles the issue of cultural displacement.
mixed-income townhome development

The Geography of Mixed-Income Neighborhoods

Where are "naturally-occurring" mixed income neighborhoods, how do we support them, and how do we use them as examples to model?

If You Build It: A Story of Transformation Through Education

“If You Build It,” a new film directed by Patrick Creadon, explores what happens when teachers urge students to use the creativity that each of them possess, but which...

Boston’s Asian CDC Creates Life and Affordability in Chinatown

Every summer, Boston’s Asian Community Development Corporation has been hosting an informal grassroots Asian film festival in a vacant lot near the city’s Chinatown Gate. The final night this year was held in the...

Police Train in Public Housing, Terrorizing Neighboring Residents

When Lauren Manning, a resident of the Ida Yarbrough Homes in Albany, N.Y., posted this public photo on her Facebook page, she probably didn't imagine that a week later it would have been shared...

Television: The Drug of the Public Realm

I have been constantly astounded since I moved back to the city last summer at the extent to which television has penetrated our public spaces. I don’t mean out in parks or on the...
A panel discussion about Opportunity Zones in Chicago.

Who Will Benefit From Opportunity Zones? It’s Still Unclear

Who will benefit most from these investments remains the biggest question.
drawing of homes in a tree

A Community-Centered Perspective on Displacement

In some communities, diverse economic networks have been and remain critical to the ability of community members to survive and thrive.

How Immigrants Are Revitalizing America’s Fading Suburbs

The Urbanophile, Aaron Renn, has an interesting new post about how American suburbs, particularly inner-ring suburbs, are being revitalized by immigrant populations. His focus is on his home region of Indianapolis, but the...
A round blue and orange sign on an urban street corner with a train on it reads "Welcome to the Ironbound"

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...
segregation of Atlantic City

In Atlantic City, the Legacy of Segregation and Redlining Endures

The legacy of racist housing policy shapes—and disempowers—Black, largely urban, neighborhoods to this day, and can be seen in places like the Northside neighborhood of Atlantic City, New Jersey.