The Center For Community Progress Blog

We continue to seek  synergies  between the important work of the Center for Community Progress, turning problem properties into vibrant places, and our work at the Cornerstone Partnership, to encourage long-term affordable homeownership strategies.  Both strategies promote long-term stewardship of land resources by better managing vacant and abandoned land (Community Progress) and by encouraging homeownership…

One of the most challenging and important problems for older cities, particularly those that have lost much of their population, is how to not only stabilize still-vital neighborhoods, but make them communities of choice – places where people who live there already want to stay, and where people from elsewhere want to move into. How…

At a time when record numbers of foreclosures are undermining the well-being of millions of families and the well-being if not the very viability of thousands of urban, suburban and rural communities throughout the U.S. we are both shocked and troubled by the decision by Congress and the Administration to end funding for housing counselors…

I’ll happily take any opportunity to tout the success of The Muskegon County Land Bank Authority.  After all, we’ve sold 54 properties altogether, including a healthy mix of “old” properties that had been held for some time, “new” dwellings that required only clean-up or minor rehab, and, in the county’s outlying townships, several vacant side…

I have the distinct honor of joining former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros, former Columbus, OH Mayor Greg Lashutka, Dan Kildee, Frank Alexander, and about 80 other experts from the United States and Europe this weekend to help set an agenda for cities in this country that are experiencing severe population loss. These are cities where…

Recently released census data confirmed what many of us long have felt to be true: that the last decade has been one of steep population decline in cities like Detroit, Flint and across the industrial Midwest. The numbers are stark: Detroit’s population fell to 713,777, a loss of 237,493 people, a 25 percent decline. Flint…