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Economic Development
Economic activity is a crucial part of a healthy community, whether it’s access to quality jobs for residents, business support, or a functioning, diverse range of retail options.
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Memphis Is Shrinking. Here’s Why We Need to Change That
Memphis is struggling with a dwindling population, driven in part by a high crime rate and disinvestment in low-income areas of the city. What are local organizations doing to turn this around?
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Meet Me at the Intersection of Housing, with Guest Dawn Kelly
Dawn Kelly, founder of the New York-based healthy food and beverage restaurant The Nourish Spot, chats with Shelterforce’s Schlonn Hawkins about the connection between entrepreneurship, housing, building communities, and more.
Preparing Underinvested Communities for New Funding
Underinvested communities are at a disadvantage when it comes to attracting and deploying funding. The Center for Community Investment is helping to change that.
Tax Increment Financing (TIF): Revitalization Tool, Developer Handout … or Both?
Tax increment financing attracts development in disinvested areas, but it also diverts millions of tax revenue away from city services to investors. And some claim officials are using the program in racist and corrupt ways. What is TIF? And how does it work?
CDFIs Shouldn’t Act Like Banks, But Too Often Do
When receiving bank funding, CDFIs often limit their investments in accordance with bank restrictions. How can reforms to the Community Reinvestment Act help center the needs of underserved communities?
Philanthropy Has Been Trying to Buy Buildings for the Arts for Years. Now We Know It Works.
San Francisco’s CounterPulse shows how arts organizations can take advantage of a lease-to-own model.
New Yorkers Need Land. The NYPD Is Sitting On Nearly 150 Lots.
A new map reveals how much land in New York City is being wasted by city police—often sitting vacant, rather than serving the public good.
Land Owned by LLCs More Likely to Be Vacant
NYC’s land speculators use LLCs to evade legal responsibility while sitting on vacant property.
NCRC Claims KeyBank Broke Promises, Failed Black Homeowners
Who is responsible for evaluating whether groups adhere to promises made in a community benefits agreement (CBA)? Is there any recourse for those who don’t get what they were promised? And what lessons can we take away from the KeyBank CBA?
Residents Owning Their Local Economy
In the face of extractive “investments,” communities are exploring creative models that let them both exert control and earn returns themselves.
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.
‘We-Making’: How Arts and Culture Build Social Cohesion
In Oakland, the Black Cultural Zone ties together art and community ownership to prevent gentrification and heal trauma.
Which Community Benefits Agreements Really Delivered?
Are the neighborhoods impacted by large development getting the jobs and affordable housing they were promised? Shelterforce looks back at several cities where community benefits agreements were won to find out where those agreements now stand.