The Healthy Neighborhoods Group

	"In the emotion-charged atmosphere of ‘to build or not to build’ the fundamental issue determining the future of housing has become obscured - building and maintaining neighborhood confidence. Paradoxically, the federal assistance programs encouraged a negative bias in the general perception of urban neighborhoods. Distribution formulas...rewarded the municipalities that most effectively poor-mouthed their stock. The media and citizenry vied in which could find more need, blight, and deterioration, unwittingly broadcasting the image that urban areas were becoming disaster areas, needy of massive relief. [In effect], neighborhood confidence was exchanged for limited federal assistance. In hindsight...this was a poor bargain since without neighborhood confidence, lenders retreat and city services decline; as qualified buyers, persuaded by the rhetoric, look to the suburbs, the urban neighborhoods become easy prey for unscrupulous owners and the stage is set for rapid decay and exploitation. Neighborhood confidence must be the cornerstone of any housing policy, and city after city inadvertently sacrificed this priceless commodity in the game to obtain federal assistance:"           — From Building Neighborhood Confidence, 1976 by Rolf Goetz "Someone has to own the outcome of revitalization."           — Marta Howell

The Healthy Neighborhoods Group is a collaborative of consultants dedicated to advancing an approach to revitalization that repositions neighborhoods to succeed in attracting positive investment choices by homebuyers, neighbors, business, and others. We do this through training, technical assistance, speaking engagements, writing, research and policy consultation.

Our work is organized around a specific theory of neighborhood change, more and more commonly known as a Healthy Neighborhoods approach. The Healthy Neighborhoods approach is most closely associated with neighborhood strategist David Boehlke, who has made creating healthy neighborhoods his life’s work. Others refer to this theory as a “market” approach to neighborhood revitalization, or a process to create “neighborhoods of choice”. There are a few key biases to this approach:

1. A “healthy neighborhood” is defined as a place where it makes economic sense for people to invest time, money and energy; and where neighbors successfully manage day-to-day issues.

2. In this approach, the focus is on helping people to participate in the real estate market rather than just protecting them from it.

3. Particularly in soft markets, the strategies are mostly about cultivating demand for homes and rental units in a neighborhood that has little – or has the wrong kind – rather than producing supply. However, a key value is to create a place that is attractive and affordable to a variety of income groups. In hot markets, strategies may be more focused on creating supply.

4. Production of affordable housing in this approach, when applied to place-based revitalization, is used as a tool for revitalization rather than an outcome unto itself.

5. Progress is measured by tracking quality of life indicators and neighborhood confidence rather than units produced and people served: outcomes rather than outputs.

6. This approach values the residential real estate market as a key barometer of neighborhood health, and believes that home value represents the capitalization of all neighborhood assets. As such, strategies focus on this area.

7. This approach values intensive, meaningful and ongoing discussion and relationship building with neighbors. It supports the idea of neighbors defining outcomes while practitioners offer insight into strategies and tools to get there. It makes the work of an organization about achieving the outcomes desired by neighbors rather than delivering programs on behalf of funders.

We evaluate neighborhood health in four areas, and design strategies to achieve outcomes in each:

Image: In a healthy place, residents are confident about the future of the neighborhood, and outsiders think the neighborhood is a good place to live and work, even though all of them may not choose to live there for any number of reasons.

Market: Demand in the residential real estate market needs to exceed supply in order to maintain the growing housing values that support reinvestment; housing prices should be rising at rates better than the regional median; residential time on market for listings should be shorter than the regional median; inmovers are always at least as good or better for the neighborhood as outmovers; and there is little to no speculation because of persistently high entry prices – at the same time, quality housing opportunities for people of modest means are maintained.

Physical Conditions: Properties are the continual recipient of reinvestment; “in-between” properties (neither obviously public nor private) are in a high state of repair; public property enhances the value of adjoining private property; it makes social and economic sense to invest “above” or in front of the market.

Neighborhood Management: Neighbors manage change and threats; problems that arise are solved quickly; public institutions are held accountable and are accountable; properties communicate a high degree of care; behaviors outside the “norm” that are a detriment to reinforcing confidence in the neighborhood are quickly curtailed.

Perhaps the best publication on this approach is Great Neighborhoods, Great Cities [link to pdf file], which describes the theory and practice of it in Baltimore. Also, see www.czb.org for a particularly useful taxonomy of neighborhoods.

The founding members of the Healthy Neighborhood Group are:

Charles Buki

Charles Buki, principal of czb, llc (based in Alexandria, VA) has held senior positions at the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation and The American Institute of Architects. He was a Loeb Fellow in Advanced Environmental Studies at Harvard University and a Mesa Fellow at the Common Counsel Foundation. He has lectured widely on revitalization and gentrification; in 1992 he was a panelist at the United Nations Conference on Human Settlement and in 2000 was a consultant to the Millennial Housing Commission. Since founding czb in 2001 he has continued to speak out on the need for a new approach to community development. He presently serves on the board of directors of the International Sonoran Desert Alliance and on the Fannie Mae Foundation’s Advisory Committee on Organizational Effectiveness.

Charles Buki
703-548-3708
buki@czb.org

David Boehlke

David Boehlke (based in Washington, DC) is a nationally recognized expert in neighborhood revitalization and the country’s leading authority on Healthy Neighborhoods. David has worked in more than 125 communities over his 30-year career. He has served in numerous capacities as consultant and executive director of several nonprofit organizations. He holds degrees in geography and architecture from Johns Hopkins and Harvard. David has spearheaded Healthy Neighborhoods work throughout the United States, has written seminal works on the topic, and has trained many of the nation’s leading practitioners of neighborhood revitalization.

David Boehlke
202-363-1483
djboehlke@starpower.com

Marcia Nedland

Marcia Nedland, principal of Fall Creek Consultants, is a community development consultant specializing in home-ownership program and product development, neighborhood revitalization strategy development, and customer-focused marketing on behalf of neighborhoods and institutions. She has degrees in marketing and business administration, and has worked in the community development field for twenty years for clients such as the Fannie Mae Foundation, The Michigan State Housing Development Authority, and the Goldseker Foundation.

Marcia Nedland
607-275-3750
marcia@fallcreekconsultants.com

Michael Schubert

Mike Schubert, principal of Community Development Strategies (based in Chicago), formerly served as Commissioner of the City of Chicago Department of Housing, a cabinet level position in the administration of Mayor Richard M. Daley. Before that he worked in various capacities for Neighborhood Housing Services in Chicago. With Fall Creek Consultants, Schubert has created neighborhood strategies for communities across the nation, and developed and delivered training on revitalization for many clients, including Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation, the Goldseker Foundation, the State of Michigan, and Xavier University in Cincinnati. He has a Masters Degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Illinois and currently lives in Chicago.

Michael Schubert
773-927-1964
mfscds@aol.com

For more information on Healthy Neighborhoods, please contact any of us.