By Scholastica Wilson
In recent years, community
development corporations (CDCs) have received major attention from government and
private funders as a promising way to improve urban neighborhoods and the lives
of those who live in them.
These groups are nonprofit, community-controlled real estate
development organizations dedicated to the revitalization of poor neighborhoods.
They undertake physical revitalization as well as economic development, social services,
and organizing and advocacy activities.
Because public services for poor communities are fragmented across
multiple agencies and levels of government, CDCs often are the only institution
with a comprehensive and coordinated program agenda.
CDCs as an industry made strong gains in their number, size,
outputs, and contributions to neighborhood revitalization over the 1990s. They
increased their ability to influence neighborhood markets and to respond to
neighborhood problems. They expanded their physical revitalization activities and
began to pursue more comprehensive approaches to community improvement.
These advances were largely the result of an institutional
revolution within most major U.S.
Community development support “systems” had emerged in many
cities. These systems are comprised of the interrelated people and institutions
that mobilize money, expertise, and political support for community development.
As prominent aspects of these systems, governments, financial
institutions and philanthropic organizations came together to create new
collaborative bodies to support CDCs.
These bodies linked CDCs to money, expertise, and political
power. They attracted resources from local and national sources and channeled
them to CDCs as project capital, operating subsidies, and technical assistance
grants. They also engaged civic and political leaders in a neighborhood
improvement agenda.
Scholastica Wilson is the Development Director at New
Covenant Community Development Corporation.
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