The Slice: How communities can keep control of commercial development.

Development without Displacement: A Q&A with the Leaders of LocalCode Kansas City

“The benefits of local ownership are about agency in the control of your community—controlling what happens, what tenants come in, what businesses occupy the spaces,” says Ajia Morris, founder of LocalCode Kansas City, a development company helping communities build wealth and wellbeing through local ownership of real estate. Her local organization is supported by a national nonprofit, LocalCode, founded by Jeffrey Mendelsohn.?

“Community-led initiatives tend to be smaller projects,” says Mendelsohn, “and the big neighborhood-impacting projects tend not to happen until somebody wants to come in and gentrify a community.” LocalCode is looking to upend that trend, facilitating large mixed-use projects with the support of local leaders and community buy-in.?

“Locally owned, regenerative real estate is the most catalytic thing we can invest in to help structurally disadvantaged communities,” says Mendelsohn. That’s particularly important in Kansas City, where generations of racial and economic division—legal, societal, and structural—have impoverished the city’s majority-Black East Side. “We have over $200 million in development on the East Side right now, in just our first five years,” notes Morris. “If we keep going at the same pace, I see the community owning $500 million in commercial real estate. That’s game-changing.”?

The two answered a few of our questions about their approach, successes, and the obstacles LocalCode has had to overcome. Read the full interview here.??

Morris and Mendelsohn are game changers with Aspen Institute associations. Morris is a Wealth Innovation Fellow with the Financial Security Program, and Mendelsohn (also a Wealth Innovation Fellow) is a Henry Crown Fellow with the Aspen Global Leadership Network. Through AGLN, Mendelsohn (and LocalCode) was just awarded one of four Spark Grants from the Global Inclusive Growth Partnership, a collaboration between the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth and the Aspen Institute. A short video about the five-year partnership is available here.

Upcoming Events

Building Wealth Through Inclusively Owned Commercial Real Estate

January 30, 1pm ET

Virtual

Inclusively owned commercial real estate can enable local stakeholders—residents, local businesses, nonprofits, and others—to gain equity and other benefits of development projects in their communities. The Aspen Institute Financial Security Program and the Asset Funders Network host a virtual discussion featuring innovative approaches for bringing capital into under-invested communities in equitable ways. Register here.

Employee Ownership Ideas Forum

April 9 and 10

Washington DC and Virtual

The Forum—hosted in partnership with the Rutgers Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing and now in its third year—convenes members of Congress and their staff, administration leaders, federal agencies, researchers, practitioners, philanthropists, advocates, investors, and leaders and workers from employee-owned companies to explore the potential of this bipartisan strategy to expand economic opportunity. Save the date and join the mailing list to be notified as soon as tickets are available in the coming weeks.

News Bites

• Video from last week’s book talk with author Brigid Schulte, author of Over Work: Transforming the Daily Grind in the Quest for a Better Life, is now online, courtesy of our Economic Opportunities Program. Find out how rejecting a culture of overwork can reduce burnout, promote fairness, and contribute to a more stable economy by watching A New Year’s Resolution to Reject Over Work.

• Millions of US Latinos use remittance services to support relatives and friends in their home countries—but 1.3 million US Latino households lack access to formal financial services. “Remittances can play a critical role in opening the door to additional financial services such as checking and savings accounts, credit, and insurance products,” writes Diego Deleersnyder of Aspen Latinos and Society in Digital Remittances: Unlocking Financial Inclusion Across Borders, a recent post on the Institute’s website.

• When power shifts, how can we ensure families aren’t forgotten in the shuffle? The answer, according to election exit polling from Ascend at the Aspen Institute, is to leverage two-generation (2Gen) approaches to well-being. A report on those findings, along with video of a related discussion, is available here. Relatedly, program director Anne Mosley advocated for state and local policymakers to prioritize family support systems in an op-ed for the Rio Grande Guardian.

• In September, Gary Community Ventures, our Financial Security Program, and The Bridgespan Group hosted the second annual ASSEMBLE100, bringing together 100 investors, entrepreneurs, fund managers, policymakers, and thought leaders to address a specific socioeconomic challenge. A full report from this year’s meeting—on the theme “Ownership Investing”—is available here.

• In an op-ed for WorkingNation, Chelsea Miller of UpSkill America asks, “US workers are falling behind. Can they catch up?” She doesn’t merely offer a hopeful “yes,” but offers strategies to address the skills gap in a way that works for employers, academic providers, and workers.