Summer 2006
Issue #146
Community Control: From Participatory Budgeting to Neighborhood Planning
While participatory budgeting is not uncommon in many parts of the world, the movement is only beginning in North America. This issue looks at efforts in Lawrence, Massachusetts; Chicago, and New York's Chinatown; and at how some CDCs are discovering both the challenges of neighborhood planning and the rewards. In all cases, community organizing and collaboration were vital to the creation of successful plans.
Jane Jacobs’ Radical Legacy
Sometimes a book can change history. Books often influence ideas, but only rarely do they catalyze activism.
Say NO to Wal-Bank
Wal-Mart, the largest retailer in the world, has become the retail corporate poster child for unscrupulous behavior. And now they would like to be a poster child for the banking […]
The Second Storm
“The New Homeless: The Affordable Housing Crisis on the Gulf Coast” A short video on the evictions crisis Nine months after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, low-income families face […]
Building Trust
The challenge of 9/11 brought Chinatown’s organizations, long riven by deep-seated differences, together to plan for recovery.
Following the Money Trail
Chicago’s community organizations are learning to actively engage in the local budgeting process to fund neighborhood improvements.
Let The People Decide
Transformative Community Development Through Participatory Budgeting in Canada
Budgeting for Democracy
How one community is campaigning for greater resident control of public resources.
GSE Not Doing Enough?
A Texas nonprofit says Fannie Mae doesn’t serve enough people who are low-income and of color in the Dallas-Fort Worth region. After four years of research, the Texas Low Income […]
Former Prisoners Get A Break
Boston took a big step this spring to help reintegrate ex-felons into their communities, by easing background checks on potential city employees. The city will not look at people’s criminal […]
OTS Strikes Again
Last year the federal Office of Thrift Supervision weakened the responsibilities of many mid-sized banks under the Community Reinvestment Act by redefining them as small banks. Now OTS has redefined […]
Saving Mark-to-Market
Housing advocates are calling on HUD to support renewing the Mark-to-Market program, one of the more successful efforts to address the expiration of Section 8 project-based contracts. The program enables […]
All Out for Affordability
Irvine, a city of 180,000 in conservative Orange County, California, plans to make 10 percent of its housing stock permanently affordable. The city set a goal of putting nearly 10,000 […]
A Community Whodunit
The Long Stair: An Albany Mystery, by Kirby White. Fox Creek Press, 2005, 220 pp. $15 (paperback). The Long Stair is available for $15 (plus tax) from the Capital District […]
Thirsty for Justice
Some 200 miles from the Mexican border, residents of New Mexico’s 23-year-old Pajarito Mesa community pay taxes but lack essential services like roads, electricity and emergency services. Perhaps the most […]
Hallmarks of Success
In Lawrence, MA, a group of residents had what should have been a simple request: that the city improve its trash collection in their neighborhoods. That need led to a […]
Planning Beyond the Project
Neighborhood planning allows CDCs to move beyond housing development and become community catalysts.
A Little Too Blunt?
Alphonso Jackson, HUD’s tough-talking chief, might have spoken a little too bluntly in Dallas in April. Speaking before a gathering of business leaders, Jackson said that he had denied a […]