Land/Environment

  Neighborhoods across the country bear signs of the pressing waves of development-driven displacement: boarded windows, doors hanging open, furniture and household items in front yard. Despite its impact on thousands of families and lives, the displacement that accompanies gentrification...

"200,000 Indianapolis residents live in food deserts. Low income communities of color are the most impacted by lack of access to fresh food. But communities are responding to these challenges by creating and controlling their own food destinies." So begins...

Westwood Unidos was a successful example of organizing residents to achieve health equity in a historically disinvested, working-class, predominantly Latino neighborhood. Formed in 2012 in Denver, Colorado, Westwood Unidos (WU) utilized an Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) community organizing approach...

"Today, I'm going to tell you three stories of people who didn't move out of their neighborhoods," says Majora Carter - McArthur "genius" Award winner originally known for her pioneering work "greening the ghetto" in the South Bronx in...

To most of us, housing seems to be one of those things like the weather or the stock market controlled by unseen forces far outside our reach. Yet decade after decade, we feel the impacts of these forces keenly...

An emerging co-operative development project in L.A.'s Crenshaw neighborhood is boldly challenging the model of urban development by asserting their vision for a co-operatively owned, community-backed mall that will directly benefit community members and their small businesses, rather than...

It is often the habit of organizational professionals who interface with communities to do "to" or "for" local residents. However, when such staff step back from their traditional functions and shift their focus to supporting community members to decide...

A path toward racial justice and equity cannot avoid a confrontation of economic injustice. I first heard of Damon Lynch as the pastor who corrected John McKnight's characterization of our communities as being not just "half-empty" as but also "half-full."...

Writing in Backyard, a newsletter exploring scalable solutions to make housing fairer, more affordable and more environmentally sustainable, Emily Nonko puts Cincinnati's Margie Spinney and Renting Partnerships in the spotlight. The renter equity model changes everything by making wealth...

About every six weeks for the last six years, John and Peter have hosted conversations with community-building social innovators as their guests. Their August 4, 2020 guest was DeAmon Harges, named by the Kettering Foundation as one of eight...