Mounting problems of housing affordability, inequality, and climate change demonstrate that the American Dream is increasingly unreachable and unsustainable for many families, as well as the planet. Recent analysis by Tracy Hadden Loh, Joanne Kim, and Jennifer S. Vey provides evidence for why zoning reforms that legalize more diverse housing options are key to creating more socially just and prosperous neighborhoods. Transformation of zoning, in other words, can lead to a transformation of places.
Transit has the potential to connect people to places in a sustainable, affordable manner—but only if riders can access it. In our newest Placemaking Postcard, authors Jesse Cohn McGowan, Lauren Pepe, and Juan Jose Castro Cerdes describe Montgomery County, Md.’s efforts to make a new transit line more equitable by enhancing pedestrian connectivity and safety in areas with high concentrations of low-income residents and people of color. “Pedestrian access to transit should not be an afterthought—it should be an integral part of the transit planning and implementation process,” they argue.
The pandemic took away important community spaces like libraries, community centers, and parks just when residents needed them most—leaving locations without the social infrastructure to gather and build resilience. In this Placemaking Postcard, authors Aaron Greiner and Emily Cooper describe how Peabody, Mass. transformed unused Main Street spaces to spark downtown revitalization and support artists amid the pandemic recovery.
Did you know? Last fall, the Bass Center released “Mapping rural America’s diversity and demographic change,” which found that despite the frequent conflation of “rural” with “white,” rural America is actually becoming more diverse—with the median rural county increasing its population of color by 3.5 percentage points between 2010 and 2020.
What we’re reading
Diverse drivers of revitalization in rural and small-town America. For decades, many rural and smaller towns have suffered from population declines and economic hardship. In “Resettling Main Street: Refugees bring revitalization to some of America’s small cities,” the authors take a deep look at the economic impact of refugees in smaller Rust Belt cities—demonstrating their important role in revitalizing these places through population growth and entrepreneurship. Another key driver of revitalization—creative placemaking—is also showing promise in rural America. The Daily Yonder’s “Murals Helping Reinvigorate Rural Communities” shows that murals, “largely thought of as an attraction for big cities and urban areas,” are being used across rural America to increase vibrancy in overlooked areas. Finally, with the recent passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Headwaters Economics released a “rural capacity map” tool to help ensure that infrastructure investments reach rural communities and communities of color that may lack capacity for accessing them.
Investing in place to combat violence. The Bass Center recently took a holistic look at the place-based drivers of—and solutions to—violence, arguing that to address spatially concentrated violence, we must actually invest in supporting and enhancing opportunity in those communities most at risk to it. It’s an issue that’s gaining attention. CityLab recently wrote about Dallas’ successes in coordinating city agencies to address the underlying conditions that lead to crime, focusing on specific micro-grids and issues such as blight, lighting, park access, and homelessness. The Trace profiled community-based interventions in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., where a state-funded violence prevention program gets trained social workers to conduct therapy where people already spend their time—on street corners, front porches, pizza joints, and more. And an op-ed in The Philadelphia Inquirer argues that community-based solutions to violence can work, but need considerable, sustained funding and support. “A single dose of insulin won’t cure a diabetic, and so won’t a single grant to a community organization,” the author writes. “Maintaining physical health is a lifelong process, and so is the effort to support and sustain community-based violence prevention and intervention programs.”
