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Essays on People, Place & Purpose

IDEAS THAT WORK

Poverty is touching more lives and penetrating more communities than ever. This collection of essays examines what we can learn from the history of community development and provides dozens of innovative ideas for working with new partners, creating new financing tools, and leveraging new technologies to bring opportunities to America’s struggling communities.

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Building Sustainable Communities Thumbnail — Elizabeth A. Duke: Foreword: Building Sustainable Communities
PEOPLE AND PLACES At one time, policy discussions revolved around whether community development was … Read More

2_VonHoffman_thumbnail — Alexander Von Hoffman: The Past, Present, and Future of Community Development in the United States
For more than a century, American reformers have struggled to remedy the problems of poverty in the … Read More

3_Berube_thumbnail — Alan Berube: The Continuing Evolution of American Poverty and Its Implications for Community Development
The Gospel according to Matthew quotes Jesus as saying to his disciples, “For you have the poor alwa… Read More

4_Belsky_thumbnail — Eric Belsky and Jennifer Fauth: Crossing Over to an Improved Era of Community Development
The field of community development is at an inflection point, poised to achieve scale, impact, and i… Read More

5_Donovan_thumbnail — Shaun Donovan, Arne Duncan, and Kathleen Sebelius: Fighting Poverty through Community Development
The Great Recession forced families and communities to confront the worst economic collapse most of … Read More

6_Blackwell_thumbnail — Angela Glover Blackwell: America’s Tomorrow: Race, Place, and the Equity Agenda
The quintessential promise of America is that through hard work, anyone born poor can succeed. The a… Read More

7_Blanchard_thumbnail — Angela Blanchard: People Transforming Communities. For Good.
Neighborhood Centers, Inc., has a long and rich history in community development, beginning with our… Read More

8_BuggLevine_thumbnail — Antony Bugg-Levine: Future of Community Development: How CDFIs Can Best Ride the Impact Investing Wave
Think of the community development finance industry as a small boat with an outboard motor. For four… Read More

9_Duncan_thumbnail — Cynthia M Duncan: Community Development in Rural America: Collaborative, Regional, and Comprehensive
More than 59 million people live in rural America, and nearly 9 million, or 18 percent, are living i… Read More

10_Edwards_thumbnail — Shirley Franklin and David Edwards: It Takes a Neighborhood: Purpose Built Communities and Neighborhood Transformation
About 70 percent of prisoners in New York State come from eight neighborhoods in New York City. Thes… Read More

11_Grogan_thumbnail — Paul Grogan: The Future of Community Development
This volume offers a series of views on the future of community development. The future entails deve… Read More

12_Hecht_thumbnail — Ben Hecht: From Community to Prosperity
“Past performance should not be seen as an indicator of future success.” Anyone who has ever had to … Read More

13_Howard_thumbnail — Ted Howard: Owning Your Own Job Is a Beautiful Thing: Community Wealth Building in Cleveland, Ohio
In September 2011, the U.S. Census Bureau released new statistics about poverty in the United States… Read More

14_Mourey_thumbnail — Risa Lavizzo-Mourey: Why Health, Poverty, and Community Development Are Inseparable
For 40 years, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has worked to improve health and health care for al… Read More

15_Miller_thumbnail — Clara Miller: The World Has Changed and So Must We
A RUDE AWAKENING Like other American foundations, the F. B. Heron Foundation has for years focused o… Read More

16_Murphy_Falk_thumbnail — Sister Lillian Murphy and Janet Falk: Getting to Scale: The Need for a New Model in Housing and Community Development
Housing is a key component in the history of community development. Although there are many calls to… Read More

17_Pinsky_thumbnail — Mark A. Pinsky: What Problem Are We Trying to Solve?
What is the problem that community development was created to solve? What is the problem it is solvi… Read More

18_Brooks_thumbnail — John Robert Smith and Allison Brooks: Transit-Oriented Development Is Good Community Development
The steady dispersion of people and jobs across core cities, suburbs, and exurbs has contributed to … Read More

19_Tesch_thumbnail — Jennifer Tescher: Household and Community Financial Stability: Essential and Interconnected
Financial services are the plumbing of our financial lives. They are the critical infrastructure tha… Read More

20_Adler_thumbnail — Nancy E. Adler: Assessing Health Effects of Community Development
Although health is a major topic of U.S. policy debates, the focus has not been on health policy but… Read More

21_Thompson_thumbnail — Xavier de Souza Briggs and J. Phillip Thompson: Deep Democracy Is Not Meetings that Last Forever: Community Development Next
Community development has long been part industry, part social movement. At its core is an idea that… Read More

22_Calabria_thumbnail — Mark Calabria: Rules, Not Resources
Community development policy, at least at the federal level, has continued to approach poverty as if… Read More

23_Edelman_thumbnail — Peter Edelman: Our History with Concentrated Poverty
American poverty has many faces. The poor are elderly and young, families and single individuals, me… Read More

24_Ellen_thumbnail — Ingrid Gould Ellen: Crime and Community Development
Community development has traditionally focused on investments in housing, commercial revitalization… Read More

25_Conti_Heckman_thumbnail — Gabriella Conti and James J. Heckman: Early Childhood Development: Creating Healthy Communities with Greater Efficiency and Effectiveness
Healthy communities are catalysts for personal health and economic success. Creating healthy communi… Read More

26_Shonk_thumbnail — James M. Radner and Jack P. Shonkoff: Mobilizing Science to Reduce Intergenerational Poverty
The proposition that local communities can generate innovative strategies to rise out of poverty has… Read More

27_Seidman_thumbnail — Ellen Seidman: Integration and Innovation in a Time of Stress: Doing the Best for People and Place
Over the past decade, amid bubble and bust, community development has undergone a subtle but importa… Read More

28_Erickson_Galloway_Cytron_thumbnail — David Erickson, Ian Galloway, and Naomi Cytron: Routinizing the Extraordinary
It is hard not to be inspired by the community-revitalizing work highlighted in this book. Geoffrey … Read More

29_Restinas_thumbnail — Nancy O. Andrews and Nicolas Retsinas: Inflection Point: New Vision, New Strategy, New Organization
What does it cost to build a great society? More pointedly, what does it cost to lose a great societ… Read More