A Pioneering Approach to Bring a Legacy of Quality, Affordable Housing to Communities

Communities nationwide struggle with inventories of properties that are causing harm—properties that are vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated (VAD). Often these properties are concentrated in areas where an intentional history of racist policies resulted in disinvestment and denied homeownership for many Black families—a loss of wealth that has compounded across several generations.   The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated these racial disparities and community destabilization. While much is still unknown…

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Climate Change: It Does Change Everything

Tarik Abdelazim serves as the Associate Director of National Technical Assistance for Community Progress. From 2010 to 2014, I served as Director of Planning, Housing and Community Development for the City of Binghamton, a city of about 48,000 in upstate New York that shares all the historical scars and future potential of other small former…

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Easy as A-B-C: The Chautauqua acquisition model

How should a land bank decide which properties to acquire? Researching our recent national land bank report confirmed it’s a major question that virtually all land banks grapple with. In Take it to the Bank: How Land Banks Are Strengthening America’s Neighborhoods, we found that “though the majority of land banks are practicing more selective acquisition…

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New York Attorney General announces $20M in land bank funding

The New York Attorney General announced yesterday that he is allocating $20 million to be awarded to land banks across the State. This is the second year that the Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman, has allocated funding for land banking, bringing the total financial commitment up to $33 million. The press conference was held in Syracuse at a vacant home being…

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New York’s land banks report statewide progress

Today, the New York Land Bank Association (NYLBA) released New York State Land Banks: Combating Blight and Vacancy in New York Communities, a report on the early accomplishments of the state’s first nine land banks over the last two years. It’s the first publication to be released by NYLBA, a statewide network of the nine land…

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10 new land banks authorized in New York!

(Learn more about what New York”s land banks are up to in the new report,  “New York State Land Banks: Combating Blight and Vacancy in New York Communities.”) The number of land banks in New York is now set to double in the coming years. The New York State Legislature passed a bill yesterday to…

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Just released! Our new report shares stories of placemaking in Legacy Cities

Today marks the release of our latest publication: Placemaking in Legacy Cities: Opportunities and Good Practices! The impetus for the report began with a question: how does placemaking apply to Legacy Cities — those former industrial hubs that are rich in historic, institutional, and other assets, but are grappling with sharp population declines? Are there good…

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Season’s greetings from Community Progress

Season’s greetings from Community Progress! As 2013 comes to a close, we took some time to reflect on the last twelve months. It’s easy to declare, “It was such a busy year!” – when is it not a busy year? – but we’d like to say, sincerely: it was a remarkable year. Here are just…

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What we’re thankful for today

If there’s one thing we’ve learned in this line of work it’s that, all over the country, there are thousands of talented, passionate leaders doggedly fighting the good fight to reclaim their communities from the scourge of blight. And, in the face of challenges that can seem insurmountable, these leaders are succeeding. In fact, if…

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