Urban Studies Commons^™

Community Development Corporations And Neighborhood Stability In Hartford And New Haven, Ct, Gabriell Nelson

Masters Theses

This study investigated the effects of CDC housing revitalization programs in Hartford and New Haven, CT on neighborhood stability. Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative data, this study sought to connect the observed impacts in Hartford and New Haven with the literature on revitalization in formerly industrial cities. Data on three key indicators of neighborhood stability (property values, owner occupancy rates, and vacancy rates) were collected for the time period spanning 2000 to 2019. Street conditions were observed by a Google Street View “windshield survey” of the CDC focus areas; conditions were observed in 2011 and again in 2019 …

Community Operational Research: A Survey Of The Discipline, Michael P. Johnson Jr., Gerald Midgley, Jason D. Wright, George Chichirau

Michael P. Johnson

Decision Modeling For Housing And Community Development: #11;A Methodology For Evidence-Based Urban And Regional Planning, Michael P. Johnson Jr.

Michael P. Johnson

Community-Engaged Decision Support For Foreclosed Housing Acquisition And Redevelopment In Boston, Michael P. Johnson Jr.

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

This project develops decision tools and analytical methods to help non‐profit community development corporations (CDCs) acquire and redevelop foreclosed housing for neighborhood stabilization and revitalization. Interviews and direct observations at partner CDCs have helped us identify current practices, data and requirements for our decision models. Problem‐structuring methods through CDC focus groups have generated core operational and organizational objectives. Spreadsheet‐ and optimization based decision models generate policy and operational alternatives that address multiple resident and community outcomes. Our research will support efficient responses to the recent foreclosure crisis, especially in distressed neighborhoods, and suggest policy implications at local and national levels.

Community-Engaged Decision Support For Foreclosed Housing Acquisition And Redevelopment In Boston, Michael P. Johnson Jr.

Michael P. Johnson

This project develops decision tools and analytical methods to help non‐profit community development corporations (CDCs) acquire and redevelop foreclosed housing for neighborhood stabilization and revitalization. Interviews and direct observations at partner CDCs have helped us identify current practices, data and requirements for our decision models. Problem‐structuring methods through CDC focus groups have generated core operational and organizational objectives. Spreadsheet‐ and optimization based decision models generate policy and operational alternatives that address multiple resident and community outcomes. Our research will support efficient responses to the recent foreclosure crisis, especially in distressed neighborhoods, and suggest policy implications at local and national levels.

Razing Lafitte: Defending Public Housing From A Hostile State, Leigh Graham

Publications and Research

The contentious politics of the demolition of Lafitte public housing in post- Katrina New Orleans and its replacement with mixed-income properties is a telling case of the strategic conflicts housing advocates face in public housing revitalization. It reveals how the qualified outcomes of HOPE VI interact with local institutional and historical circumstances to confound the equity and social justice goals of housing and community development advocates. It shows the limits to public housing revitalization as an urban recovery strategy when hostile government leadership characterizes a region, and the state is recast as an adversary rather than revitalization partner. This case …

Advancing The Human Right To Housing In Post-Katrina New Orleans: Discursive Opportunity Structures In Housing And Community Development, Leigh Graham

Publications and Research

In post-Katrina New Orleans, housing and community development (HCD) advocates clashed over the future of public housing. This case study examines the evolution of and limits to a human right to housing frame introduced by one nongovernmental organization (NGO). Ferree’s concept of the discursive opportunity structure and Bourdieu’s social field ground this NGO’s failure to advance a radical economic human rights frame, given its choice of a political inside strategy that opened up for HCD NGOs after Hurricane Katrina. Strategic and ideological differences within the field limited the efficacy of this rights-based frame, which was seen as politically radical and …

Decision Models For Foreclosed Housing Acquisition And Redevelopment: A University Of Massachusetts Multi-Campus Collaborative Project - Processes And Findings To Date, Michael P. Johnson Jr., Jeffrey Keisler, Senay Solak, David Turcotte, Rachel B. Drew, Armagan Bayram, Emily Vidrine

Jeffrey Keisler

The recent housing foreclosure crisis has had devastating impacts on individuals, communities, organizations and government. In response, several community development corporations (CDCs) have sought new ways to assist neighborhoods suffering from the myriad effects of high foreclosures, including neighborhood instability, increased vandalism and crime, lower property values, and economic disinvestment. This research project focuses on activities of community-based organizations that acquire and redevelop foreclosed properties to support neighborhood stabilization and revitalization. However, the costs of pursuing this strategy far exceed the resources available to typical CDCs. Thus, our project seeks to solve the following decision problem: What subset of a …

Decision Models For Foreclosed Housing Acquisition And Redevelopment: A University Of Massachusetts Multi-Campus Collaborative Project - Processes And Findings To Date, Michael P. Johnson Jr., Jeffrey Keisler, Senay Solak, David Turcotte, Rachel B. Drew, Armagan Bayram, Emily Vidrine

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

The recent housing foreclosure crisis has had devastating impacts on individuals, communities, organizations and government. In response, several community development corporations (CDCs) have sought new ways to assist neighborhoods suffering from the myriad effects of high foreclosures, including neighborhood instability, increased vandalism and crime, lower property values, and economic disinvestment. This research project focuses on activities of community-based organizations that acquire and redevelop foreclosed properties to support neighborhood stabilization and revitalization. However, the costs of pursuing this strategy far exceed the resources available to typical CDCs. Thus, our project seeks to solve the following decision problem: What subset of a …

Decision Models For Foreclosed Housing Acquisition And Redevelopment: A University Of Massachusetts Multi-Campus Collaborative Project - Processes And Findings To Date, Michael P. Johnson Jr., Jeffrey Keisler, Senay Solak, David Turcotte, Rachel B. Drew, Armagan Bayram, Emily Vidrine

Michael P. Johnson

The recent housing foreclosure crisis has had devastating impacts on individuals, communities, organizations and government. In response, several community development corporations (CDCs) have sought new ways to assist neighborhoods suffering from the myriad effects of high foreclosures, including neighborhood instability, increased vandalism and crime, lower property values, and economic disinvestment. This research project focuses on activities of community-based organizations that acquire and redevelop foreclosed properties to support neighborhood stabilization and revitalization. However, the costs of pursuing this strategy far exceed the resources available to typical CDCs. Thus, our project seeks to solve the following decision problem: What subset of a …

Urban Form In Europe And America, Pietro S. Nivola

Brookings Scholar Lecture Series

Why do America's cities sprawl whereas European cities remain comparatively compact, and what difference do the patterns of urban development make? Pietro Nivola, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, addresses these questions. Nivola examines two kinds of determinants of urban form: (1) market forces, including those influenced by geography, demographics, and technological change, and (2) public policies shaping national transportation systems, tax policy, educational institutions, and more. He also discusses the implications of the different cityscapes for energy consumption.

Housing And Community Development, Michael P. Johnson Jr.

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

Researchers in housing and community development design and evaluate policies regarding access to attractive, affordable and sustainable housing and improving the social, physical and economic infrastructure of communities, especially those in the urban core. Practitioners in this field confront political considerations, administrative guidelines and limited funding.

Decision science can increase the efficiency and effectiveness of market-rate housing development and provide support for policy responses to issues such as affordable housing, race and class segregation, ineffective and/or inequitable economic development, and sustainable development. This research spans many disciplines, including systems modeling, urban economics, multi-criteria decision modeling, stochastic models and decision support …

Permanently Failing Organizations? Small Business Recovery After September 11, 2001, Leigh Graham

Publications and Research

Small businesses in Lower Manhattan after September 11, 2001, paint a telling portrait of vulnerability after disasters. This qualitative analysis of recovery for small retail and service firms with 50 or fewer employees is based on ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, and documentary research from September 2001 through 2005. A postdisaster emphasis on place-based assistance to firms conflicted with macro-level redevelopment plans for Lower Manhattan. Small business recovery was impeded as aid programs responded to a new sense of urgency, attachment to place, and prestorm conceptions of the neighborhood at the expense of addressing community-wide economic changes accelerated by the disaster. Ingredients …

The Market For Change: Community Economic Development On A Wider Stage, Peter R. Pitegoff

Faculty Publications

Community economic development (CED) is distinguished by a specific agenda for broader development and accountability - for building local resources, economic capacity and political clout in lower- and moderate-income communities. Organizing and development of low-income communities must take account of microenterprise as the locus of substantial economic activity.

The Agua Mansa Enterprise Zone: An Empirical Analysis, Paul E. Ogu

Theses Digitization Project

No abstract provided.

Boston's Housing In 1984: Issues And Opportunities, Rolf Goetze

John M. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies Publications

Sharp cutbacks in federal aid for housing and community development now challenge Boston to become more resourceful in its housing strategies. In the neighborhoods where new solutions are needed, much has already been happening that can be adapted and expanded. Fortunately, the City's resurgence can also help achieve more results with less public resources, but a fresh approach involving community interests is essential. At the same time, local laws, procedures and programs devised to address past problems must also be critically re-evaluated to determine their appropriateness to the new realities.

Confidence in Boston's future is being uplifted, and many neighborhoods …