Resources, publications, and more
Explore key publications and web content exploring the unique challenges and opportunities in equitable community development.
To explore the distribution of infrastructure funds, the Urban Institute research team – funded by the Melville Trust as part of the Partnership for Equitable and Resilient Communities justice venture – developed a first-of-its kind, comprehensive database of projects funded in fiscal year 2022 through 66 federal grant programs contained within IIJA or from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Race Forward developed From Seed to Harvest: A Toolkit for Collaborative Racial Equity Strategies to guide racial equity practices within community-government collaboration for sustainability and renewable energy policies and programs.
Interview with Andre M. Perry, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution, about the practice of redlining in the U.S., how it impacted Black Americans from developing wealth, and what’s being done on a policy level to correct it.
Heather C. McGhee explains how racism makes our economy worse — and not just in ways that harm people of color. From her research and travels across the U.S., McGhee shares startling insights into how racism fuels bad policymaking and drains our economic potential — and offers a crucial rethink on what we can do to create a more prosperous nation for all. “Our fates are linked,” she says. “It costs us so much to remain divided.”
Starting in the 1930s, civil rights litigators won court victories that desegregated law and graduate schools, then colleges and, in the 1954 Brown decision, elementary and secondary schools. These legal victories helped to spur a civil rights movement that, in the 1960s, forced an end to racial segregation in public transportation, in public accommodations, in employment, and in voting. Serious enforcement problems remain, and a contemporary backlash threatens these victories, but we have nonetheless seen great progress in these areas since the mid-twentieth century.
With the City of Buffalo receiving $331 million in direct funding from the American Rescue Plan Act, Ghirmatzion believes the city has an opportunity to take that lesson to heart and support other neighborhoods in to go through the same community-led process PUSH Buffalo went through for the Green Development Zone. But, she says, that’s not even close to what’s happening. And across the country, so far, similar stories are playing out in other cities that are figuring out what to do with ARPA relief dollars.