"Finally a book that contextualizes community and neighborhood development and planning in a progressive but realist fashion. Peterman provides community and neighborhood planners with preassessment criteria and a methodological tool-kit to help ensure future success. This book is invaluable to neighborhood and community development planning courses and will provide a useful adjunct to social planning and social work courses." --Mickey Lauria, University of New Orleans "Bill Peterman has written a passionate treatise on neighborhood planning tempered by more than 20 years of front line experience. The result is a powerful praxis that can guide planners, community activists, and theoreticians who are concerned with making community-building a reality." --Barbara Ferman, Professor of Political Science, Temple University "Bill Peterman′s critical analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of America′s expanding community development movement should be required reading for all community activists, urban planners, policy analysts and municipal officials! Peterman′s rich insights and thoughtful recommendations regarding how community-based planning and development can lead to a broader popular movement for greater social equality deserve the immediate attention of all those concerned about the future of U. S. cities." --Kenneth M. Reardon, Associate Professor in Urban and Regional Planning, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign " Bill Peterman offers important insights from his long experience in Chicago on neighborhood planning and community-based development. His case studies offer very useful lessons on success and failure. This is a valuable addition to the literature on urban neighborhoods." --W. Dennis Keating Professor and Associate Dean College of Urban Affairs, Cleveland State University This book explores the promise and limits of bottom-up, grass-roots strategies of community organizing, development, and planning as blueprints for successful revitalization and maintenance of urban neighborhoods. Peterman proposes conditions that need to be met for bottom-up strategies to succeed. Successful neighborhood development depends not only on local actions, but also on the ability of local groups to marshal resources and political will at levels above that of the neighborhood itself. While he supports community-based initiatives, he argues that there are limits to what can be accomplished exclusively at the grass-roots level, where most efforts fail. Neighborhood Planning and Community-Based Development should be of special interest to individuals who are directly involved in neighborhood planning and development activities. With case studies that include the issues of gentrification, public housing, government-sponsored development of sports facilities, housing management control and racial diversity, the book takes a look at accomplishing successful neighborhood-based planning and development.

Providing concrete examples for citizens and government officials, Diers describes a successful program to support community self-help projects and a community-driven planning process that involved 30,000 people.

"This book explores the promise and limits of bottom-up, grass-roots strategies of community organizing, development, and planning as blueprints for successful revitalization and maintenance of urban neighborhoods. Peterman proposes conditions that need to be met for bottom-up strategies to succeed. Successful neighborhood development depends not only on local actions, but also on the ability of local groups to marshal resources and political will at levels above that of the neighborhood itself. While he supports community-based initiatives, he argues that there are limits to what can be accomplished exclusively at the grassroots level, where most efforts fail"--Back cover.

American cities are increasingly turning to revitalization strategies that embrace the ideas of new urbanism and the so-called creative class in an attempt to boost economic growth and prosperity to downtown areas. These efforts stir controversy over residential and commercial gentrification of working class, ethnic areas. Spanning forty years, Latino City provides an in-depth case study of the new urbanism, creative class, and transit-oriented models of planning and their implementation in Santa Ana, California, one of the United States’ most Mexican communities. It provides an intimate analysis of how revitalization plans re-imagine and alienate a place, and how community-based participation approaches address the needs and aspirations of lower-income Latino urban areas undergoing revitalization. The book provides a critical introduction to the main theoretical debates and key thinkers related to the new urbanism, transit-oriented, and creative class models of urban revitalization. It is the first book to examine contemporary models of choice for revitalization of US cities from the point of view of a Latina/o-majority central city, and thus initiates new lines of analysis and critique of models for Latino inner city neighborhood and downtown revitalization in the current period of socio-economic and cultural change. Latino City will appeal to students and scholars in urban planning, urban studies, urban history, urban policy, neighborhood and community development, central city development, urban politics, urban sociology, geography, and ethnic/Latino Studies, as well as practitioners, community organizations, and grassroots leaders immersed in these fields.

Neighborhood planning programs involve citizens in developing plans and self-help projects for their neighborhoods through local organizations. They also assist residents in reviewing projects developed by city agencies. Based on a survey of fifty-one nei

In this new volume, Michael A. Pagano curates essays focusing on the neighborhood's role in urban policy solutions. The papers emerged from dynamic discussions among policy makers, researchers, public intellectuals, and citizens at the 2014 UIC Urban Forum. As the writers show, the greater the city, the more important its neighborhoods and their distinctions. The topics focus on sustainable capital and societal investments in people and firms at the neighborhood level. Proposed solutions cover a range of possibilities for enhancing the quality of life for individuals, households, and neighborhoods. These include everything from microenterprises to factories; from social spaces for collective and social action to private facilities; from affordable housing and safety to gated communities; and from neighborhood public education to cooperative, charter, and private schools. Contributors: Andy Clarno, Teresa Córdova, Nilda Flores-González, Pedro A. Noguera, Alice O'Connor, Mary Pattillo, Janet Smith, Nik Theodore, Elizabeth S. Todd-Breland, Stephanie Truchan, and Rachel Weber.

Measures for Community and Neighborhood Research is the first book of its kind to compile measures focused on communities and neighborhoods in one accessible resource. Organized into two main sections, the first provides the rationale, structure and purpose, and analysis of methodological issues, along with a conceptual and theoretical framework; the second section contains 10 chapters that synthesize, analyze, and describe measures for community and neighborhood research, with tables that summarize highlighted measures. The book will get readers thinking about which aspects of the neighborhood may be most important to measure in different research designs and also help researchers, practitioners, funders, and others more closely examine the impact of their work in communities and neighborhoods.

A new way forward for sustainable quality of life in cities of all sizes Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Build American Prosperity is a book of forward-thinking ideas that breaks with modern wisdom to present a new vision of urban development in the United States. Presenting the foundational ideas of the Strong Towns movement he co-founded, Charles Marohn explains why cities of all sizes continue to struggle to meet their basic needs, and reveals the new paradigm that can solve this longstanding problem. Inside, you’ll learn why inducing growth and development has been the conventional response to urban financial struggles—and why it just doesn’t work. New development and high-risk investing don’t generate enough wealth to support itself, and cities continue to struggle. Read this book to find out how cities large and small can focus on bottom-up investments to minimize risk and maximize their ability to strengthen the community financially and improve citizens’ quality of life. Develop in-depth knowledge of the underlying logic behind the “traditional” search for never-ending urban growth Learn practical solutions for ameliorating financial struggles through low-risk investment and a grassroots focus Gain insights and tools that can stop the vicious cycle of budget shortfalls and unexpected downturns Become a part of the Strong Towns revolution by shifting the focus away from top-down growth toward rebuilding American prosperity Strong Towns acknowledges that there is a problem with the American approach to growth and shows community leaders a new way forward. The Strong Towns response is a revolution in how we assemble the places we live.

Community Planning: How to Solve Urban and Environmental Problems covers the basic theoretical principles of community planning and how planning has evolved in the United States. The book defines the interdisciplinary nature of the field, identifies the forces that shape the planning process, and explains the sub-specialized areas of community planning. Throughout the text, the author draws connections between the theoretical principles of planning and their practical applications, leading to an emphasis on the essential skill that links theory to implementation and practice— problem solving. After reading each chapter and corresponding exercises, students learn to link the theoretical concepts with real world planning problems on their campus, downtown, and hometowns. Several major themes run throughout the text. First, understanding the theoretical principles of community planning leads to effective practical applications in problem solving. Second, using the problem-oriented approach is an effective way of dealing with the immediate situations that confront community planners, and lastly, planners are confronted with their political implications, therefore discussions about the role of federal, state, and local regulations on planning practice are woven into the text. Community Planning: How to Solve Urban and Environmental Problems provides students with an understanding of the events that shape community planning, the particular forces that impact the planning process, and the knowledge that is needed to link content areas together to solve planning problems. The book is suitable for students in regional, environmental, city, and community planning courses, as well as for students in related fields including geography, sociology, criminal justice, public administration, and economics. The content and problem solving techniques are valuable for all students in order to participate in community service activities in the future, and the practical aspects of the text make it suitable as a reference for professional planners and local planning board members as well.