Ask not What Your Neighborhood Can do For You. Ask What You Can do For Your Neighborhood (And other interesting tidbits)

As the Honorable Sheila Dixon, Mayor of the City of Baltimore would say “community engagement is critical to the success of taking back our neighborhoods.”  And as I would say, no housing initiative in any urban center can ever be successful if you don’t have the neighborhood support and buy-in to keep it up, keep it running, and keep it from turning into just another great housing idea gone bad. To that end, lets look at some news and views about “gettin’ er done” in terms of making neighborhoods home:

• As usual, people sleep on the midwest–but as I have previously said necessity is a mother. Clearly, Cinncinatti knows it–and got an award to boot.

 

• Some people think that neighborhood revitalization=gentrification. It doesn’t have to. And here is the best synopsis I’ve seen on how.

 

• If I have not already said it, I love Baltimore (one day I will post on why). And here is a case study that talks about some of the things that have worked–by in large because there is community buy-in.

What interesting approaches to neighborhood revitalization have come across your desk?