“Why do we have to rely on developers to fix our problems when this is our own neighborhood and we own the land?” asks Renee Martinez-Stone of the West Denver Resistance Collaboration, one of the members of SPARCC’s Denver collaborative table. The West Denver Resistance Collaboration’s West Denver Single Family Plus (WDSF+) program is gaining […]

Over the past year and a half, SPARCC sites have demonstrated their ability to set bold goals to advance racial equity, health, and climate resilience in their regions and, perhaps more importantly, to respond, adapt, and identify the challenges and opportunities emerging through their work. As we reach a midway point in the program, SPARCC […]

Laura Choi, the Research Manager for Community Development at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, recently wrote a blog post reflecting on the National Interagency Community Reinvestment Conference that was held in Miami in March of 2018. In Choi’s post, she discusses the importance of one of the conference’s cross-cutting themes: inclusion and racial equity. […]

By: Mariia Zimmerman Workers, students, care givers, and older adults are among the many different types of community members who struggle to find safe, reliable, and affordable mobility options. Increased investment over the past two decades in public transit is helping to connect more people to economic opportunity. Transit helps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and […]

Stephanie Gidigbi, the SPARCC Policy, Capacity, and Systems Change Director and Senior Adviser at NRDC, wrote a post outlining a series of recommendations to improve America’s infrastructure.  Gidigbi emphasizes that we need an infrastructure plan that prioritizes investments that are innovative, equitable, and climate resilient. Past government policies, including redlining, continue to have a negative […]

Last week marked the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis, TN. We were moved by a piece authored by Odetta MacLeish-White, Managing Director at TransFormation Alliance and our SPARCC Atlanta partner, commemorating the life and work of Dr. King and connecting it to the work she, her organization, […]

In an op-ed piece for The Hill, Laurie Schoeman, national program director at Enterprise Community Partners, provides recommendations to increase the resilience of regions with an equity lens. In light of the natural disasters, from wildfires to hurricanes, that have ravaged the U.S. recently, she notes the importance of investing in resilient infrastructure to protect […]

By Brian Prater In the community investment sector, we have succeeded in offering innovative capital investments that are focused on one component of our work, such as affordable housing or small business. However, we have struggled to finance more complex solutions that address the broader strategic needs expressed by communities and their residents.  This narrowness […]

In December, Elevated Chicago hosted a symposium on equitable transit-oriented development as part of their public launch around their initiative, which aims to transform the half-mile radius around transit stations into hubs of opportunity and connection across the region’s vast transit system. The day was filled with presentations from community members, a panel discussion, and breakout […]

In honor of National Arts and Humanities Month, a “coast-to-coast collective recognition of the importance of culture in America,” we’re sharing insights gleaned from Liz Ogbu, a designer, urbanist, and social innovator who infuses arts and culture into sustainable design and spatial innovation in challenged urban environments. Ms. Ogbu joined the SPARCC sites at their […]