efficion

Topic 12: Neighborhood Informal Helping & Assets Based Community Development (ABCD)

Part 1: Human Services and Neighborhoods Part 2: Establishing Institutional Partnerships People turn first to family, friends, and neighbors when problems arise in their lives. This “informal helping” is voluntary, spontaneous, individualized, flexible, based on self-reliance, and is reciprocal in nature. Such helping breaks down barriers created by “provider” and “client” relationships and helps overcome […]

Topic 12: Neighborhood Informal Helping & Assets Based Community Development (ABCD) Read More »

Topic 9: Neighborhood Economic Development

Part 1 – Background, Economic Transformation & Concentrated Poverty, and ED Approaches Part II – Programs, Financing, Place-Making “At the very center of the community building challenge is the effort to revitalize the community’s economic life”. However, broad economic conditions make this a challenge in neighborhoods, especially those of concentrated poverty. In many cities, a

Topic 9: Neighborhood Economic Development Read More »

Topic 8: Neighborhood Housing / Making Housing Affordable

Housing for Community The following three slide shows include a range of topics regarding housing.  Part 1 covers the importance of decent affordable housing to personal, family, and neighborhood stability.  A history of affordable housing programs is presented, showing how motives other than the interests of residents, in combination with entrenched racial bias, often have

Topic 8: Neighborhood Housing / Making Housing Affordable Read More »

Topic 6: Built Environment of Neighborhoods

People cannot plan or build the world without creating or changing themselves. The built environment is the physical counterpart of the social community. It reflects the neighborhood’s history, culture, spiritual beliefs, and social organization. This section uses The Hill neighborhood in St. Louis to illustrate Kevin Lynch’s categories of “edge”, “path”, “node”, “landmark”, and “district” and also the concept of “sacred space”.

Topic 6: Built Environment of Neighborhoods Read More »

Topic 5: Background Information for Neighborhood Planning

Neighborhood Planning always involves collecting background information. This section covers a range of planning tools used to describe neighborhood conditions and inform planning. The tools include some standard approaches like using Census data and surveys. Other less frequently used techniques are oral histories, population forecasts, and employment projections. Background information should be collected in the service of neighborhood strategic planning.

Topic 5: Background Information for Neighborhood Planning Read More »

Topic 3: Metropolitan Forces Affecting Neighborhoods

City and regional change have important neighborhood impacts. The region’s vitality and economic growth can slip away from older neighborhoods and focus on the urban fringe. For example, the City of Detroit is in crisis while the Detroit region continues to grow. Metropolitan governments can subsidize growth at the urban fringe, sometimes without knowing it, and fail to be good stewards of existing schools, parks, and infrastructure.

Topic 3: Metropolitan Forces Affecting Neighborhoods Read More »

Topic 2: Neighborhood Planning Models of Action

Three approaches to Neighborhood Planning (or “models”) are: Rational Planning, Community Organizing, and Assets Based Community Development (ABCD). Each of these approaches is described with an emphasis on organizing and ABCD. Yet all are needed in different circumstances. This section contains the advice from the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative: “The heart is far more important than the head”

Topic 2: Neighborhood Planning Models of Action Read More »

Topic 1: Introduction to Neighborhood Planning

The goal of Neighborhood Planning is to build social capital, which is the ability of the neighborhood to organize itself to identify problems and solve them in partnership with elected officials, businesses, and public agencies. In this section, we define Neighborhood Planning, assemble the parts of a good neighborhood plan, and review its history. Neighborhood Planning is a way to unify and improve place-based social and physical conditions

Topic 1: Introduction to Neighborhood Planning Read More »