Subject: Communities
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There's a place in every community where people congregate to exchange ideas, socialize, pray, engage, or just plain hang out. Those places aren't home; they're not work; they're the point at which the community comes together. These places are essential…
A couple weeks ago close to 200 people came together at Twin Oaks, a commune in my home county of Louisa, Virginia, to discuss various elements of living in community-cooperative businesses; community gardens; consensus-based decision making, etc. One of the…
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Urban farming has long served as a way for distressed communities to turn blighted land into socially and economically productive community spaces—a means of stabilization illustated in Alex Kotlowitz's report in Mother Jones this month. His report, supplmented by an excellent photo…
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As I embarked on my journey the other day to a planning conference, I carried a dog-eared copy of James Kunstler's The Geography of Nowhere in my bag. This book caused quite a stir when it came out back in…
One question most of us probably don't ask when we're thinking of renting or buying a home is, who were the people who lived here before us? I lived in many different rental properties in urban areas over the years and the…
The vaunted “third space” isn’t home, and isn’t work—it’s more like the living room of society at large. It’s a place where you are neither family nor co-worker, and yet where the values, interests, gossip, complaints and inspirations of these…
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The U.S. House of Representatives last week voted to eliminate the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, in the latest move by this Congress to make ineffective government a self-fulling prophecy. Of course the census has been under increasing suspicion for…
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No one expects that a one-size-fits-all definition for community development or a blueprint model for effective CD is attainable—it must be tailored to the needs of individual communities. But are there basic rules we can follow for effective CD? We've…
Driving through Virginia's Hanover County the other day, I was struck by how much history has imprinted itself on the landscape. I drove by the Hanover Courthouse, where Patrick Henry argued against the English king's right to impose his will…
Unemployment and other economic reversals have led to adult children to come back home to live with their parents, increasing housing size and reducing demand for housing: (see NPR's "One Roof, Three Generations, Many Decisions") even as the number of…
The other day at a meeting I heard some residents complaining that Virginia's transportation department won’t pave their road. I had to feel for these folks, with their cars forever covered in dust from the dirt road, but I was…
I was introduced to the concept of the community garden on my street in Boston several years ago, on a site where a house had burned to the ground some time earlier. After it was cleared, the city claimed the…
Over the past couple weeks John Muller at the Greater Greater Washington blog has written some truly provocative pieces, including "Ward 8 development founders, may lose $4 million in grants" and "Abandominiums house Anacostia resentment," that identify important issues concerning…
"Why does everyone in the country live out in the middle of nowhere? It’s so inefficient!" This was the reaction of a friend of ours, who hails from Europe, on a recent visit to our rural neck of the woods.…
Boston's historic Charles Street AME never missed a mortgage payment, but the church could not refinance and ultimately fell in arrears on its $4 million construction loan to be used to build a community center. Separately, the church, founded in…
I read a recent column that suggested getting rid of the word “suburb.” While there’s still a distinction between the central city and the outskirts, the author noted that many of the outskirts have acquired an urban character, and can…
Having lived in DC for nearly a quarter century now, I am still flabbergasted to see white people pushing baby carriages on streets in my old neighborhood on H Street in Northeast. Now a national example of successful "commercial district…
On the national level, the Tea Party has been viewed by some as a conservative movement concerned with rolling back changes over the past few decades for social and economic justice. On the local level, though, community developers and planners may notice more…
Like many states over the past several years, New York State has been implementing fiscal austerity measures to rein in expenses in the face of struggling revenues. But what will be left of New York communities when the dust settles,…
Surprise! People in small towns like to walk and ride bicycles nearly as much as people in cities do. That's the word from a report just released by the Rails to Trails Conservancy. Since the statistics show the small town citizens…
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National Housing Institute
