Posts Tagged ‘Vacant Properties’
How Marquette County Land Bank took on property at an abandoned air force base
Land banks can be useful in communities of all sizes. While land banking has been established as an important tool in the urban revitalization toolbox, our new report, Take it to the Bank: How Land Banks Are Strengthening America’s Neighborhoods, also shows how land banking works in more rural areas. Marquette County is located in…
Read MoreAdvice for land banks from Cuyahoga Land Bank’s Gus Frangos
Our new report, Take it to the Bank: How Land Banks Are Strengthening America’s Neighborhoods, takes an in-depth look at how the Cuyahoga Land Bank serves the community in and around Cleveland, Ohio. It was established in 2009, has nearly 30 staff members and, as of March 2014, had more than 1,150 properties in its inventory. The Cuyahoga Land Bank’s operations…
Read MoreJustin Godard comes on board with the National Leadership and Education team
We are pleased to welcome Justin Godard as a program associate on the National Leadership and Education team at Community Progress. Here’s what he has to say about coming on board: How did you first become interested in the community development and urban planning fields? I feel as though the story behind how I got into community development…
Read MoreElection day: Local leadership is critical to revitalization
Voters across the nation stream to the polls today in our annual democratic exercise, weighing the promises from candidates in how best to address some of our pressing challenges. At the local level, I doubt there is much variance among the top concerns shared by residents and families: taxes, jobs, crime, and blight. As a…
Read MoreOn World Food Day, a look at food justice & urban ag with Garden Justice Legal Initiative in Philadelphia
On World Food Day, which is themed “Family Farming: Feeding the World, Caring for the Earth” this year, we’re exploring how the reuse of vacant properties can be a critical component of achieving food security and justice. In order to successfully eliminate entrenched, systemic blight communities must support a wide array of reuse strategies, and urban agriculture is…
Read MoreNatalie Pruett: New Community Progress hire lends unique viewpoint as Flint native
We are pleased to welcome our newest staff member, Natalie Pruett, Program Officer of Michigan Initiatives, to the Community Progress team. To introduce her, we asked her a few questions about her work and her perspective as a native Flintonian. Here are her thoughts: How did you first get interested in working on urban revitalization,…
Read MoreIt looks different around here: Our new brand, and what it means
It’s looking a little different around here today. And it feels a little different, too. Today marks the public culmination of our strategic planning and rebranding process. Over the past year, we’ve done some soul-searching. The peak of the foreclosure crisis has passed, but its impacts continue to hurt neighborhoods around the country. Other communities…
Read MoreWebcast: Community Progress speaks on vacant properties and land banks at HUD
In conjunction with the release of HUD’s latest issue of “Evidence Matters,” Kim Graziani and Alan Mallach were invited to speak at HUD’s Quarterly Briefing last week. They were joined by U.S. Representative and Community Progress co-founder Dan Kildee (MI), Yolanda Chavez, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Grant Programs in HUD’s Office of Community Planning and Development, and…
Read MoreRaising the bar in The Big Easy: Remediating 10,000 blighted properties in less than four years
In January 2014, Mayor Mitch Landrieu announced that the City of New Orleans had not only met, but actually exceeded a major goal set back in September 2010: remediating 10,000 of the city’s more than 40,000 blighted properties by the end of 2014. The City of New Orleans reached the goal in the first half…
Read MoreAt the heart of it all
We can point to the negative impact of vacant properties on health, crime, property values, and other areas. We can study vacancy numbers and property tax revenues, strained public budgets, and the impacts of demolition and preservation. But when we’re caught up in the day-to-day, it can be easy to lose sight of what’s at…
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