Towards a New System of Community Wealth

Yesterday, Ross Baird and myself released a new report entitled Towards a System of Community Development.

Thanks to Accelerator for America and the Nowak Metro Finance Lab for being full partners on this project.

Our message is quite clear. We believe the United States is witnessing a radical shift -- a quiet revolution -- in its approach to the revitalization of distressed urban communities.  For almost sixty years, the U.S. has dutifully delivered a top-down “Community Development” system, narrowly focusing on producing low-income rental housing with a mix of federal tax incentives, federally encouraged bank debt and direct federal subsidies. 

Over the past decade, a new system has begun to emerge, focused on developing people rather than buildings, with a blend of public, private, civic and community leadership and capital. This system, which we label “Community Wealth,” is being raised bottom up, and is fundamentally committed to upgrading skills, growing entrepreneurs, increasing incomes and building assets. If codified and routinized, this system has the potential to bring hundreds of billions of market and civic capital off the sidelines into productive use and drive transformative outcomes for disadvantaged communities across the country.

We look forward to any and all comments as you read this paper.