neighborhood revitalization

It’s time to understand that shrinkage is no longer somebody else’s problem.

As some cities begin to admit they are shrinking, CDCs in high-abandonment neighborhoods are rethinking their traditional roles, and even their missions.

A Bronx-based building known as the birthplace of hip-hop has been the subject of a high-profile tug of war between gambling real-estate investors and an eclectic yet powerful group of tenants, housing advocates, city agencies, local politicians, and hip-hop artists. The building’s well-publicized plight has helped shine a light on the threat predatory equity poses to affordable multifamily housing.

The federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program is a welcome source of funds in struggling communities, and it has had a massive effect on the nature of the response to the problem of vacant foreclosed property. As NSP3 gets underway and the NSP1 obligation period comes to a close, Shelterforce looks back at NSP so far.

Marge Piercy’s poem “To Be of Use” praises people who jump right in to whatever work needs to be done, passing buckets of water down the line to put out […]

Film director Michael Moore will use a $1 million film tax credit he received for his film “Capitalism: A Love Story” to launch the State Theatre/Michigan Downtowns Project, which aims […]

The trendiest neighborhood in West Palm Beach is Northwood, a collection of historic districts, fading industrial areas, and blocks of small bungalows and grand Mission-style homes that is now hopping […]

In the past decade, community land trusts and other shared equity housing models have gained wider acknowledgement and acceptance as a means of creating and preserving affordable housing in communities with high property values. But by cultivating the long-term success of homeowners, these models are also bringing revitalization and stability to areas with weak markets and high foreclosures.

Towns long in Chicago’s shadow have sought creative ways
to collaborate for federal funding, while building off existing
partnerships as part of a long-term approach to neighborhood,
and regional, stabilization.

A great story is emerging in Rose Town, Jamaica, a community in the process of being reborn with the help of HRH the Prince of Wales and The Prince’s Foundation […]

New Jersey’s Paterson is among the nation’s oldest planned industrial cities, but it has fallen on hard times since the once-booming silk industry there declined in the latter half of the 20th century. Much of the industry in this city of 150,000 has since left, but now a geological attraction once envisioned by Alexander Hamilton as something that could be harnessed for industrial might, is fully protected, and could be channeled, this time, for its community-building potential.

My view is that no other single category of activity is more important to sustainable development than revitalization. When done properly, it’s great for residents old and new, great for […]