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Community Progress regularly posts to this blog on a range of related topics to help communities across the country turn vacant spaces into vibrant places. Please check back regularly, and sign up for our newsletter to receive the latest news directly in your inbox.

September 13, 2023

Looking Back at the 2020-21 Community Revitalization Fellowship: Creative Placemaking by Community Leaders from Three Cities

Learn about creative placemaking projects by residents of Birmingham, Alabama; Reading, Pennsylvania; and Fitchburg, Massachusetts.

September 5, 2023

Meet Kat Guillaume-Delemar, President & CEO of Community Progress

For Kat Guillaume-Delemar, community revitalization is a deeply personal journey.

August 29, 2023

Transforming Cleveland Vacant Lots into an Urban Farm

How the Cuyahoga Land Bank and a community activist worked together to transform a block one property at a time.

August 24, 2023

Explaining the Cycle of Systemic Vacancy

Systemic vacancy is the community experience of widespread property vacancy caused by the combined actions of people, policies, and processes.

August 17, 2023

Celebrating 20 Years of Land Banks in Michigan

In 2023, Michigan land banks mark two important milestones: 20 years since the passage of Michigan’s Land Bank Fast Track Act and incorporation of the 50th land bank in the state.

August 10, 2023

Vacant Land is More Than a Single Lot—it’s a System.

Conceptualizing vacant land as a system makes it possible to identify where strategic interventions can push the system toward different, more desirable outcomes.

July 31, 2023

Creative Placemaking in Braddock, Pennsylvania

Community leaders in Braddock, North Braddock, and East Pittsburgh are creatively reactivating vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated properties.

July 20, 2023

Lessons from 2023 VAD Academy: Systemic Racism is a Root Cause of Vacant Properties

The key lesson from this year’s VAD Academy: systemic racism is a root cause of vacant, abandoned, deteriorated properties.

June 22, 2023

Creación de espacios creativos en Loíza (Puerto Rico)

A principios de marzo, los cohortes de la Beca de Revitalización Comunitaria (CRF) 2022-23 viajaron a Loíza, Puerto Rico, para su segundo intercambio de aprendizaje. Estos intercambios…

June 22, 2023

Creative Placemaking in Loíza, Puerto Rico

As part of the Community Revitalization Fellowship, fellows from Loíza, Puerto Rico shared the creative placemaking working happening in their community.

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Why Heirs’ Property is a Problem for Vacancy and Abandonment

To address vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated (VAD) properties, local governments must first identify what types of VAD properties exist in the community. Some properties are abandoned with no mortgage and near tax foreclosure. Some fall into disrepair during a long mortgage foreclosure process. In other cases, a property owner may…

Driving Change: A Mid-Year Reflection from Community Progress

A letter from our CEO & President about our work in the first six months of 2024.

What is a Brownfield?

Brownfield properties, often referred to as “brownfields,” are properties where the presence or potential presence of hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant makes redevelopment challenging and costly.

What is the Neighborhood Revitalization and Land Banking Act?

The bipartisan bill is an important step in giving rural, urban, and suburban communities the tools to address “blighted” properties. The key focus of the bill is providing support to land banks, a tool many communities are adopting to support economic and neighborhood revitalization.

The Problem with Calling Neighborhoods with Vacant Properties “Blighted”

Blight is a shorthand term many people use to refer to properties they perceive as problematic in some way.

How Vacant and Abandoned Buildings Affect the Community

Vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated (VAD) properties—referred to by some as “blighted properties”—pose significant costs to public health, property values, local taxpayers, and more.

What Can Neighbors Do about Vacant Buildings and Lots?

When neighbors come together, they can be a powerful voice for community revitalization.

What is Code Enforcement?

Code enforcement from A to Z: when it works, when it doesn’t, and how local governments can make code enforcement systems more fair for all.

What’s the Deal with Rural Land Banks? A Q&A with West Virginia Land Stewardship Corporation Executive Director Taylor Bennett

Land banks can help rural communities deal with vacant, abandoned, and dilapidated properties.

How to Prevent and Reduce Illegal Dumping

Cities spend millions each year cleaning up illegal dumping. What if they tried to make vacant lots less appealing to dumping in the first place?

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