By Laurie Schoeman Across the nation, floods, hurricanes, droughts, heatwaves, and fires have become more frequent and more severe, increasing risks to people, homes, and infrastructure. Recently, we’ve seen storms and fires ravage communities from Puerto Rico, Texas, and Florida to California, killing Americans, upending millions of lives, and costing countless dollars in damage. In […]

Douglass Sims, the Director of Strategy and Finance for the Center for Market Innovation at the Natural Resources Defense Council, recently wrote a blogpost on EcoDistricts about the importance of shifting our thinking around infrastructure projects. The new vision he discusses, called High Road Infrastructure, prioritizes community needs when developing infrastructure projects so as not […]

In a chapter in the newest issue of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco’s Community Development Investment Review, Nancy O. Andrews, the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Low Income Investment Fund, discusses the importance of integrating justice more explicitly into the community development field. Ms. Andrews reflects on her more than 30 […]

Representatives from SPARCC’s three original funders – the Ford Foundation, The Kresge Foundation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation – recently wrote a chapter in the newest issue of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco’s Community Development Investment Review reflecting on the goals and early development of the initiative.  The chapter’s co-authors summarized their […]

Mariia Zimmerman is the Principal and Founder of MZ Strategies, LLC and consults for SPARCC on federal policy issues. A recent post on her blog focused on regional efforts among SPARCC sites to battle displacement. On August 8, Mariia spoke about these issues and SPARCC at the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) Sustainability & Multimodal Conference in […]

By Stephanie Gidigbi, SPARCC Policy and Systems Change Director As the United States continues to struggle with policies focused on healthcare, leaders could learn from Copenhagen that investing in people and the places in which they live might be a better strategy to improve health outcomes for everyone. Photo: Steve Johnson. Courtesy of the Robert […]

What we’re reading The health impacts of urban heat: The CityLab article We Can Feel the Warmth in the Walls follows one Los Angeles family and documents the health dangers of rising temperatures, particularly in urban communities of color. As heat events increase in length, frequency, and severity, elderly residents, children, and low-income communities are […]

Catch up on the latest research and thought pieces around equitable community development that benefits our health, our neighborhoods and the environment.

By Kendra Freeman – Growing up in Chicago, I learned about segregation at an early age.  My education came riding the ‘L’ from 95th street north to the Loop and to different neighborhoods on the north and west sides of the city and suburbs.  It’s a lesson natives and transplants learn quickly as riders shift […]

A game changing conversation has begun among environmentalists, community developers and the people most affected by changing neighborhoods and changing climates.