Investing in the Future: Realizing the Opportunity of Middle Neighborhoods

Description:

Middle neighborhoods are communities that are neither clearly healthy and thriving nor overtly distressed. Long seen as stable areas for middle- and working-class families, including many households of color, today many middle neighborhoods are on the tipping point of either growth or decline. The fate of middle neighborhoods has serious consequences for the long-term health of towns and cities, the quality of life for current residents, and the ability of current and prospective residents to build wealth and access opportunity. Ensuring that these communities remain stable and strong, and are positioned for improvement, is a time-critical issue faced by community-serving organizations.
Over the past several years, organizations across the country have come together to ensure that middle neighborhoods—areas that are neither clearly thriving nor overly distressed, but which could go either way—have a viable future. A growing community of practice is also documenting and sharing effective work to stabilize and strengthen middle neighborhoods across the US—demonstrating real results. Looking ahead, the shared goal is to ensure these localities have what they need to continue to offer a high quality of life, abundant amenities and services, and access to homeownership and wealth-building opportunities.

Join NeighborWorks America, the National Community Stabilization Trust and members of the national Middle Neighborhood initiative to explore ways to strengthen middle neighborhoods that are at risk.

This symposium will focus on critical trends, challenges and opportunities, including:

• Housing Strategies: Preserving the naturally occurring affordable housing stock in middle neighborhoods and ensuring long-term affordability
• Capital Strategies: Exploring ways to increase the capital available to support homeownership, property repairs and other revitalization activities
• Wealth-Building Strategies: Addressing threats to the historic role of middle neighborhoods in providing opportunities for homeownership and wealth building – particularly for black communities and other communities of color
• Collaborative Strategies: Highlighting collective regional or citywide approaches that have resulted in increased attention, partnerships and resources, and examining supportive local, state and national policy frameworks
• Resident Engagement Strategies: Ensuring that residents are engaged, connected, feeling empowered and are well-positioned to lead efforts to strengthen their own communities

You’ll come away with fresh approaches to bolster your revitalization work—and the models and inspiration to put those new ideas into practice. Whether you are new to the middle neighborhoods concept, have direct experience to share, or are exploring how you can work or partner to stabilize neighborhoods, this symposium is for you!

The day has been designed with sessions for:

• Community development organizations that are working to strengthen and stabilize middle neighborhoods
• Existing and new middle neighborhood community of practice members
• City planners, municipal agency staff and local elected officials
• Real estate finance, agents and lending professionals
• Funders and philanthropic partners

Register