Vacant Lots
According to new reaearch, the power of green space where vacant lots previously stood includes mental health benefits, especially in low-income neighborhoods.
NPR
A California policy lets cities offer tax incentives to landowners who put vacant lots to use as urban farms or gardens. Long Beach is the latest comer, but the uptake has been sluggish elsewhere.
Next City
Chicago's Planning Department is putting eight city lots to work as "Stormwater Parks."
Chicago Cityscape
The vacant lot program at the Cook County Land Bank Authority recently kicked into high gear—offering a huge number of vacant lots for sale, located around 27 neighborhoods and suburbs in the Chicago region.
Crain's Chicago Business
What better way to show you love for your community than by transforming its underused spaces into gathering areas for activities and fun?
Center for Community Progress
The McKinsey Global Institute wants to help California build 3.5 million homes by 2025.
The New York Times
In 2006, Dallas voters approved a bond package that promised $42 million for new libraries. Ten years later, and after $11.75 million in spending, none of the projects are close to completion.
The Dallas Morning News
Formerly vacant homes are now vacant lots in South Bend, Indiana. Returning the lots to productive uses presents a new kind of challenge for community groups and local officials.
WSBT
The Kansas City Land Bank has the funding to back up plans to begin transforming blighted, vacant lots into thriving groves of poplar trees.
The Kansas City Star
Detroit Future City has released a guidebook for the process of redeveloping, renovating, and remediating neighborhoods full of vacant and blighted properties.
The Detroit News
In a bid for revenue and rejuvenation, Newark is selling vacant lots for $1,000. Buyers promise to build a home and stay for at least five years.
New York Times
A motion passed earlier this month calls for landowners to receive tax breaks for leasing vacant property for agriculture and farming.
The Los Angeles Times
Baltimore's urban gardening program dates back to 1978. A recent article details how the program works and the opportunity presented by a recent expansion to a new kind of property.
Seedstock
Following a trend that has been more common in shrinking cities, Washington D.C. is considering a bill that would convert district-owned lots into urban farms.
DCist
Nate Berg reports on the legal problems that can arise when a good Samaritan tries to create a park on a vacant lot.
The Atlantic Cities
Vacant lots in American cities consume vast amounts of land, which many are now recognizing as places of opportunity. Some cities and citizens are transforming once empty urban spaces into vibrant community-fostering places.
The Nature of Cities
John Gallagher investigates a growing trend of unsanctioned urban agriculture in Detroit, where residents have had to take alternative land use into their own hands.
Detroit Free Press
An art competition in Salt Lake City has resulted in a new installation to be built in one of the city's vacant lots.
The Salt Lake Tribune
About half of commercial mortgage defaults in Las Vegas last year were for vacant land. With loans impossible to get and construction at a halt, vacant land is a hard sell.
Las Vegas Review-Journal
A review of a new book <em>Building Commons and Community</em> by Karl Linn, a landscape architect and psychologist who worked to create vibrant community spaces in abandoned lots and boring institutional settings.
re:place Magazine
