The Center For Community Progress Blog

When we launched the Center for Community Progress in January of 2010, our goal was to become a potent source of information, tools and support for communities and cities fighting to prevent abandonment or to create strategies for productive reuse of vacant, abandoned and distressed property. Building on that vision, over the past two years…

Dan Kildee, President, Center for Community Progress While many housing and community activists have long intuited that well-financed “vacant property speculators” were wreaking havoc in their communities – driving down prices, prolonging vacancies and spreading blight – a new study by the Cleveland Fed both substantiates their suspicions and opens up the discussion about thoughtful…

Dan Kildee, President, Center for Community Progress In May of 2005, at the conclusion of the first land bank conference we ever held, I was approached by two sweet sounding women from Arkansas. They had made the trek to my hometown of Flint to learn about how a land bank might help their hometown of…

Last week the nation took a welcome and much-needed step towards confronting some of the root causes of the foreclosure crisis that has struck cities and towns across the nation. The CFPB – the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – released new regulations to ensure that “non-banks” – independent lenders, brokers, servicers, and others unaffiliated with…

Where else but Little Italy in Baltimore in 2011 could you find 20 people from across the country on a Monday night deeply engaged in dialogue about the intricacies of code enforcement systems and processes? And who would sponsor such a gathering if not the Center for Community Progress? “Turning Vacant Spaces into Vibrant Places”…

As policy analysts and pundits unpack President Obama’s Thursday address on jobs and the economy, Eric Scorsone of Michigan State University reminds us in Community Progress’ latest blog entry that the fiscal health of our cities is a core driver of the larger economic health of their regions. He argues that comprehensive strategies to address…

Back in March, a team of municipal and community leaders from New Jersey were fortunate enough to participate in Community Progress’ Leadership Institute in Cambridge. While representatives from Jersey City, Orange, Irvington, Newark, and Millville were able to take part in this great learning experience, there was also tremendous interest from leaders from a number…

“In the past, local governments and private entities have mostly dealt with vacant property on a case-by-case, deal-by-deal basis. But with thousands of properties vacant in a single community or region, that process is not efficient enough to process property in a timely fashion and either return it to productive use or minimize its negative…