Community Development


Investing in What Works for America's Communities

The views expressed are not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco or the Federal Reserve System.

Starting from the history and current state of community development, in this eclectic collection of essays, experts on health, education and transportation join community development thinkers and practitioners in urging us to break though silos in our programs, our financing streams, and our thinking. They challenge practitioners, policy makers and researchers alike to respond to the complex challenges facing our families and communities by using data-based rigorous analysis to direct scarce resources to what works.

Sarah Rosen Wartell, President, Urban Institute

This volume presents the thoughtful ideas and philosophies of an extremely diverse set of leading scholars and policy-oriented experts as well as practitioners who have been driving community-based innovation. In so doing, it leads one to interesting—and sometimes unexpected—places regarding the best approaches for driving effective transformational change. It is a must-read for those contemplating how to integrate people, place, capital, and public, private, and nonprofit institutions to achieve community development and personal growth.

Raphael Bostic, Professor, University of Southern California

This thoughtful collection will set the standard for the community development field for the next decade. It is an outstanding set of essays by experts in an ever-expanding and always complex field. These are demanding times in the world analyzed in this volume and the authors recognize that those in it are fighting a steep uphill battle. But community development professionals struggle on with imagination and sophistication and the book captures the essence of the learning by front-line workers and those researching their activity. I know when I see a" value-added volume" in the field. This is one of them. Were I still teaching about community development, "Investing in What Works" would be at the top of the required reading list and the basis for the organization of the course.

Lang Keyes, Ford Professor of City and Regional Planning Emeritus, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, MIT

This volume, an important resource for those engaged in community development, goes beyond the dichotomy of place-based versus people-based policies to define what makes communities sustainable and resilient. Through its holistic approach, this volume provides the latest analysis by foremost community development experts: practitioners, researchers, and policy makers on emerging programs that are successful in building stronger communities in the United States.

Susan Wachter, Professor of Real Estate and Finance, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

 

Editors and Advisory Committee

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Foreword
Elizabeth A. Duke, Governor, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

 

Section I
Community Development: Past and Present

The Past, Present, and Future of Community Development in the United States
Alexander von Hoffman, Harvard University

The Continuing Evolution of American Poverty and Its Implications for Community Development
Alan Berube, Brookings Institution

Crossing Over to an Improved Era of Community Development
Eric Belsky, Harvard University
Jennifer Fauth, City of New York

 

Section II
Open Forum: Voices and Opinions from Leaders in Policy, the Field, and Academia

From Leaders in Policy

Fighting Poverty through Community Development
Shaun Dovonan, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education
Kathleen Sebelius, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services

From Leaders in the Field

America’s Tomorrow: Race, Place, and the Equity Agenda
Angela Glover Blackwell, PolicyLink

People Transforming Communities. For Good.
Angela Blanchard, Neighborhood Centers, Inc.

Future of Community Development: How CDFIs Can Best Ride the Impact Investing Wave
Antony Bugg-Levine, Nonprofit Finance Fund

Community Development in Rural America: Collaborative, Regional, and Comprehensive
Cynthia M. Duncan, AGree

It Takes a Neighborhood: Purpose Built Communities and Neighborhood Transformation
Shirley Franklin, Purpose Built Communities
David Edwards, IBM Corporation

The Future of Community Development
Paul Grogan, Boston Foundation

From Community to Prosperity
Ben Hecht, Living Cities

Owning Your Own Job Is a Beautiful Thing: Community Wealth Building in Cleveland, Ohio
Ted Howard, Democracy Collaborative

Why Health, Poverty, and Community Development Are Inseparable
Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

The World Has Changed and So Must We
Clara Miller, F. B. Heron Foundation

Getting to Scale: The Need for a New Model in Housing and Community Development
Sister Lillian Murphy, Mercy Housing
Janet Falk, Mercy Housing

What Problem Are We Trying to Solve?
Mark A. Pinsky, Opportunity Finance Network

Transit-Oriented Development Is Good Community Development
John Robert Smith, Reconnecting America
Allison Brooks, Reconnecting America

Household and Community Financial Stability: Essential and Interconnected
Jennifer Tescher, Center for Financial Services Innovation

From Leaders in Academia

Assessing Health Effects of Community Development
Nancy E. Adler, University of California, San Francisco

Deep Democracy Is Not Meetings That Last Forever: Community Development Next
Xavier de Souza Briggs, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
J. Phillip Thompson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Rules, Not Resources
Mark Calabria, Cato Institute

Our History with Concentrated Poverty
Peter Edelman, Georgetown University Law Center

Crime and Community Development
Ingrid Gould Ellen, New York University

Early Childhood Development: Creating Healthy Communities with Greater Efficiency and Effectiveness
Gabriella Conti, University of Chicago
James J. Heckman, University of Chicago

Mobilizing Science to Reduce Intergenerational Poverty
James M. Radner, University of Toronto
Jack P. Shonkoff, Harvard University

 

Section III
Mapping the Future: Synthesizing Themes and Ideas for Next Steps

Integration and Innovation in a Time of Stress: Doing the Best for People and Place
Ellen S. Seidman, Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco

Routinizing the Extraordinary
David Erickson, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
Ian Galloway, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
Naomi Cytron, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco

Inflection Point: New Vision, New Strategy, New Organization
Nancy O. Andrews, Low Income Investment Fund
Nicolas Retsinas, Harvard Business School