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What makes Holistic Neighborhood Development unique?
Place-Based
One of the greatest indicators of one’s life-long economic mobility is the neighborhood in which one lives. HND asserts that place is the most important factor to consider when seeking long-term outcomes, and it is one of the most neglected lenses within traditional poverty alleviation tactics. Place allows us to go deep, work broadly, and invest in the long-haul for real results.
Proximity
We cannot solve anything from a distance. We have to draw near, enter into relationship, and open ourselves up to the possibility of mutual transformation. Transactional giving between strangers will never end poverty. You cannot serve someone out of poverty. HND leads with neighboring and relationship.
Integrative
Poverty is neither caused, sustained, or solved by any one thing; it is the dynamic intersection of multiple factors, systems, and circumstances. The “holistic” dimension of HND is about committing to comprehensive engagement that seeks innovative, integrative strategies for long-term outcomes.
Agile
Cities, people, opinions, policies, and economies can all change in the blink of an eye. Strategies that worked last year might night work in the next. Work done for months may come up empty and expectations may get upended at a moment’s notice. HND can create real change because it is flexible and adaptive, constantly committed to the best, healthiest approach, even if that means a radical course correction mid-stream. We do not seek the perpetuation of our program; it is always about the thriving of a community and whatever it takes to make that happen.
Impact-Oriented
Results matter. Not activity, not busyness, not arbitrary program numbers, but impact. They may be hard to come by, hard to define, or hard to measure, but they are core to what it means to commit to HND. We want to see lives and communities thriving, not dependent on external support year after year. We do not settle for less than true and lasting change.
Data-Driven
Flourishing communities is not just a big vision for us. It is a process we have developed with tools to track and measure the health of a place. This process will define and create the strategies that will lead to long-term, lasting change in your neighborhood.
JUST ACTION | Leah Rothstein
In 2017, the book “The Color of Law” hit the shelves and quickly went viral exposing how racial segregation in our communities is not a matter of personal choice, but a matter of government-enforced and funded mechanisms. As important as the book is, thousands of us asked, “What now? If this is the nature of the problem we face, how in the world do we move toward a more just and equitable future?”
The answer to those pleas is now here! Richard and Leah Rothstein have teamed up to release the must-read follow-up entitled Just Action: How to Challenge Segregation Enacted Under the Color of Law. Listen in as Leah and Shawn discuss the long-term nature of community organizing and the importance of intentional efforts to perpetuate and sustain change.
RED HOT CITY | Dan Immergluck
Listen in as Shawn chats with Dr.Dan Immergluck about the design complexities in cities like Atlanta. Dan is the author of over 100 scholarly articles and 5 books that focus on housing, race, neighborhood change, gentrification, segregation, real estate markets, and urban political economy. Listen in as we talk about his research in one of his recent books, Red Hot City: Housing, Race, and Exclusion in Twenty-First Century Atlanta.
This conversation highlights missed opportunities in Atlanta’s development and the need for more equitable approaches. We explore the impact of corporate investment on Atlanta’s housing market and the role of federal and local policies in increasing inequity and solving neighborhood problems for equitable and thriving communities.
Where We Want to Live | Ryan Gravel
The Atlanta Beltline is a 22-mile transit greenway that is changing both the physical form of the city and the decisions people make about living there. The vision for this city-transforming project came from a master’s thesis project at Georgia Tech in 1999 from a student named Ryan Gravel. Ryan was captivated by how cities could become more human-centered and less car-centric. He has a creative eye to see how we can repurpose existing infrastructure to make neighborhoods places of connection, vibrancy, and social and economic vitality. Do we want the kind of cities we have grown to accept as status quo? What is our vision for the kind of places we want and deserve?