Neighborhoods

In January 1992, The New York Times Sunday Magazine ran a piece by Columbia’s Nicholas Lemann, titled “The Myth of Community Development”.  It was then - timed to provoke critical thinking about the Clinton Administration’s vanilla urban policy of Empowerment Communities (EZ/EC) - a poignant evaluation of community development, and it asked hard questions. Questions about the capacity of local organizations, the wisdom of economic development efforts in the hands of anemic CDCs.  Neither wholly right nor wrong, the piece put on the table a necessary skunk:  was it sensible to try to revitalize the inner city using the tools and thinking then at hand?

March 10, 2009 - Charles Buki

In an effort to get a more precise look at the city and its distinct neighborhoods, the Los Angeles Times is starting a collaborative mapping project to set clear and adaptable boundaries for L.A.'s neighborhoods.

February 22, 2009 - Los Angeles Times

Solutions to our global ills can be found in your local neighborhood, says Jay Walljasper. Great examples can be found in communities from South Bend, Indiana to Mississauga, Ontario.

January 5, 2009 - Jay Walljasper

Congress has approved a $4 billion federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program, but as the funding trickles down to cities, many find the money too tight to solve many of their problems.

December 7, 2008 - The Wall Street Journal

City streets need only few things to make them safe, according to the famous urbanist Jane Jacobs. She says safe streets need people walking around, places for them to go, things for them to do and other people for them to interact with. Simple as that. But Jane forgot one more thing: a sock full of quarters.

October 23, 2008 - Nate Berg

That's what some guy said to me late last night as I waited for my tacos at a typically busy taco truck. He was talking about our Los Angeles neighborhood, Echo Park, which was recently named by the American Planning Association as one of the "10 Great Neighborhoods of 2008". It's a nice honor for the 'hood -- and I think they're right -- but I'm with that random taco dude: don't tell my landlord.

October 9, 2008 - Nate Berg

Last year Project on Public Spaces and I published the Great Neighborhood Book, which offers hundreds of ideas from around the world about making community improvements on issues ranging from crime prevention to environmental restoration. Since then almost everyone I meet asks: What's your favorite neighborhood? I should have an answer ready. But each time the question arises, my mind starts wandering through the great places I've explored through the years. Is it the Plateau neighborhood in Montreal, where I became infatuated with cities years ago as a college student? Maybe

July 11, 2008 - Jay Walljasper

Officials in Los Angeles have renamed the former "South Central" to remove the stigma of riots in the 1990's. But some business owners and residents say that's had a greater negative consequence than keeping the old name would have.

July 9, 2008 - The Los Angeles Times

For nearly all of my adult life, I have lived in small towns or urban neighborhoods. But for the past two years, I have lived in sprawl. When I moved to Jacksonville two years ago, I moved to Mandarin, a basically suburban neighborhood about nine miles from downtown. As I looked for apartments in 2006, I noticed that in many ways, Mandarin is typical sprawl: our major commercial street (San Jose Boulevard) is as many as eight lanes in some places, and even most apartments are separated from San Jose’s commerce. [See http://atlantaphotos.fotopic.net/c872477.html for my photos of Mandarin and other Jacksonville neighborhoods.] I thought Mandarin would be a typical suburb: homogenously white and upper-middle class.

June 11, 2008 - Michael Lewyn