Convening, Recruiting, and Connecting People Who Repair Local Economies
CategoriesEcosystem AnalysisI’ve been working on a book with Rosa Lee. Our working title is This Shit Works — And Why It Matters. One of my tasks has been compiling case studies of economic justice solutions, projects like Buy Back the Block, which enables average people in poor neighborhoods to become owners of commercial real estate in […]
CategoriesAccess to CapitalA group of CDFI and other innovative finance professionals who attended the recent Neighborhood Economics conference in Chicago have been hard at work. They’re building a playbook to address a thorny community investment problem: CDFI capital often doesn’t reach entrepreneurs from marginalized communities, who are more likely to lack collateral or the friends-and-family funding to […]
CategoriesCollective TurnFor years, Neighborhood Economics has focused on the mechanics of local repair: entrepreneurship as a path to wealth for marginalized communities, community-owned real estate, housing that’s “more affordable than affordable,” faith-friendly participation, and the catalytic capital that makes all of it possible. But a new chapter is opening—one that goes beyond individual ownership or single […]
CategoriesInnovation StackThere’s a particular kind of magic that happens when people who are repairing local economies find each other. Not in an abstract, “let’s collaborate someday” kind of way — but in a real-time spark that produces something new. At Neighborhood Economics, we’ve started to call that the place where solutions have babies. From Libraries of […]
CategoriesChicagoEarlier this month, the Neighborhood Economics conference came to Chicago – a city alive with energy, creativity, and a fierce commitment to building stronger, more connected neighborhoods. Opening remarks from Alison Clark, the Associate Director of Impact Investing at the MacArthur Foundation, and one of the event’s key sponsors, set the tone with reflections on […]
CategoriesChicagoIt happened at 11 am, in a session on soft capital.I’d been writing for a few weeks about how the solutions to repair and heal local economies are becoming replicable, not just complex one-offs just short of rocket science. I was thinking of work like what Lyneir Richardson and his company, Chicago TREND, had done […]
CategoriesAccess to CapitalSoft Capital, Strong Communities: Emerging Housing Finance Models for Equity and Belonging What if the greatest barrier to home ownership wasn’t income or credit—but the lack of early, flexible capital that trusts people first? From Cincinnati to Denver, South Bend to Boise, innovators are piloting early-stage soft capital tools that build equity, permanence, and community […]
CategoriesAccess to CapitalFunding the Quarterbacks: Chicago’s Patient, Place-Based Strategy Chicago’s anchors and philanthropy are choosing to fund intermediaries as “community quarterbacks,” doing it patiently and with enough resources to actually move the needle. Two live examples are West Side United’s food-system market formation and Community Desk Chicago’s community-owned real estate work. Why Community Quarterbacks Matter If you […]
It’s easy to find stories about what’s broken in our economy, how inequality deepens, systems fail, and despair feels justified. These challenges are real and must be acknowledged. But when they dominate the conversation, we risk missing something equally true: there are hundreds of people, enterprises, funds, and initiatives actively repairing their local economies, quietly, […]
How Two Strangers Sparked a Citywide Awakening Sometimes, the most powerful outcomes begin with a single unexpected moment. In 2023, Joe Minicozzi of Urban3 took the stage at Neighborhood Economics in Jackson and revealed how property tax systems often force low-income neighborhoods to subsidize wealthier ones. In the crowd was Patton Dodd, director of storytelling […]