Community Redevelopment Research Articles

Restorative Environmental Justice: Assessing Brownfield Initiatives, Revitalization, and Community Economic Development in St. Petersburg, Florida

Since the 1970s businesses have been leaving urban areas in order to build on cheaper real estate and/or to cluster in industrial parks. Many of these companies were polluting industries and their departure from previous locations, many times, left behind structures containing pollutants and hazardous waste in storage or in the local soil and water. These abandoned, idled, or under-used industrial or commercial facilities are called “brownfields.” It is likely that residents and wildlife living in close proximity to these contaminated sites may have suffered adverse environmental impacts. Brownfield initiatives emerged from a movement seeking to reverse the tide of pollution production, inner city decay, and urban sprawl. Through brownfield redevelopment efforts across the nation, cities are being rejuvenated, and property owners are able to divest their environmentally impaired assets and reinvest in community economic development. Policies created by federal, state, and local governments are being implemented that clean up and recycle thousands of acres of contaminated property, leading to job creation, pollution prevention, and greenfield preservation. Restorative Environmental Justice (REJ) as a concept highlights the ethical value of widening the scope of corporate organizational culture to include residential stakeholders. Restorative environmental justice taps into the recovery and re-distributive components of brownfield redevelopment. The notion of restorative environmental justice provides opportunities for corporate decision-makers and public officials to rectify or ameliorate situations that disenfranchised or harmed particular communities in the past. Restoration of a community's economic and social viability and environmental quality is a form of reparation for previous systemic inequities. This article will assess the current status of brownfield initiatives, urban revitalization, environmental quality, social justice, collaborative decision making, and community economic development in St. Petersburg, Florida. Factors to be discussed include investments in enterprise zones, community redevelopment areas, job training, local housing, community advocacy, and collaborative efforts to raise the standard of living in disadvantaged neighborhoods and achieve some level of “restorative environmental justice.”

Venture philanthropy and social entrepreneurship in community redevelopment

This article provides a case study of Tom Cousins, a social entrepreneur who used his own venture philanthropic investments and leveraged additional resources through extensive public-private partnerships for the sole intent of redeveloping an area of disinvestment and poverty. In the process, Cousins also provided the visionary, strategic, and operational leadership often associated with the actions and responsibilities of a social entrepreneur. The limited research to date has investigated social entrepreneurship and venture philanthropy as separate and often unrelated concepts. In this study, we analyze the sustained and intensive involvement by Cousins and his foundations and the continued leadership provided in the creation of public-private partnerships focused on the redevelopment of the East Lake area in Atlanta.

Conducting Economic Impact Studies Using Undergraduate Business Students: A Tale of Two Experiences

This paper explores the use of economic impact studies as an experiential learning tool for undergraduate business students. Economic impact studies measure the economic benefits of a multitude of activities such as community redevelopment, and expansions of existing facilities. Students engaged in such studies apply knowledge and skills learned in the classroom while providing a service to a client. Accordingly, it is students of junior and senior standing that are best suited for these studies. Nonprofit social service agencies and smaller businesses are the most appropriate clients. They gain access to expertise and service in a cost effective manner.

The Use Of Economic Impact Studies As A Service Learning Tool In Undergraduate Business Programs

This paper examines the use of community based economic impact studies as service learning tools for undergraduate business programs. Economic impact studies are used to measure the economic benefits of a variety of activities such as community redevelopment, tourism, and expansions of existing facilities for both private and public producers. Economic impact studies when structured as service learning projects provide an experiential learning environment for business students, affording them with the opportunity of applying the knowledge and skills learned in the classroom while at the same time engaging in community service. Such projects can expose students to the importance of corporate social responsibility and help involved faculty to remain current in their fields of expertise while providing pedagogical and practice oriented avenues for research. Clients gain access to expertise in a cost effective manner. When done effectively, service learning projects in undergraduate business programs generate goodwill and favorable publicity while helping academic institutions meet mission statements and address specific accreditation standards.

Shifting Ground: The Rise and Fall of the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency

Shifting Ground: The Rise and Fall of the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency

Quasi-Experimental Analysis of Targeted Economic Development Programs: Lessons from Florida

The authors highlight three sources of endogeneity bias that typically haunt analyses of local government policies, and offer an empirical methodology for estimating program impacts given such concerns. They investigate Florida’s experience with implementing two common targeted economic development policies, community redevelopment areas (CRAs) and enterprise zones (EZs). Developing a simple application decision model as a guide, they find significant differences in policy implementation for small cities compared with larger cities. Florida’s small-city program implementation offers a unique opportunity to compare areas that received state-level approval for the programs with all areas that qualified for but did not receive designation using a quasi-experimental framework. In so doing, the authors explicitly address the potential for endogeneity bias caused by programrationing on the part of administrators and by nonrandom targeting of distressed areas. Consistent with existing research, they do not find evidence validating the efficacy of targeted development programs for small cities.

The Role of Access in Charitable Tax Exemption

Why are some activities that have commercial for-profit analogues (e.g., health care, public interest law firms, community redevelopment organizations) tax exempt? This article proposes an test for tax exemption that would require nonprofit organizations whose services have commercial analogues to justify exemption on the basis of access to their services: either by providing access to underserved populations or by bringing services to the general population that are undersupplied by the private market. The article begins by exploring a number of Internal Revenue Service rulings and court cases dealing with charitable organizations that provide services that have commercial analogues and concludes that the IRS and courts are actually using access criteria to evaluate tax exemption. The article then relates an access-based test to the major theoretical bases for tax exemption, and then proceeds to propose an access-based doctrinal test for exemption. The article closes by illustrating how an access-based test would apply to current areas of exemption controversy.

Senator Jacob K. Javits and Soviet Jewish Emigration

Senator Jacob K. Javits rendered a critical service in writing the compromise wording and leading the negotiations over the Jackson-Vanik Amendment of 1974, which linked most- favored-nation trade status and subsidized low-interest government credits between the United States and the Soviet Union with a higher and more sustained level of Soviet Jewish emigration. As a Jewish Republican, Javits had to reconcile his relationship with the Nixon Administration, which regarded the linkage of trade agreements with human rights abuses as destructive of detente, with his support for Soviet Jews. Javits brought his ability to balance competing interests to make more moderate and flexible the amendment language. The influence of a Jewish Senator was critical because the established Jewish organizations were initially opposed to tying Soviet trade to emigration. His connections within the United States government and with the American Jewish leadership proved indispensable in aiding Soviet Jewish emigration.

Reclaiming the Environmental Debate: The Politics of Health in a Toxic Culture

Review: Reclaiming the Environmental Debate: Politics of Health in a Toxic Culture By Richard Hofrichter, ed. Richard Hofrichter (Ed.). Reclaiming the Environmental Debate: Politics of Health in a Toxic Culture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000. 356 pp. ISBN 0-262-58182-5 (paper). US$25.00 In the introduction to this collection of seventeen essays, Hofrichter claims that our toxic culture goes beyond the traditional understanding that toxic relates to materials and processes to encompass virtually all aspects of our daily lives. That includes physical environments; ecosystems; and economic, and spiritual community health. Moreover, he argues that a toxic culture exists because of social arrangements that encourage and excuse the deterioration of the environment and human health (p. 1). themes that echo most loudly in this volume are that corporate America is responsible for creating a toxic culture, that toxicology is suspect at best, and that risk assessment, despite being science-based, is biased, perverted by corporate influence, and not considerate of risk views in non-mainstream America. Aside from the introductory chapter by the editor, the book is organized into three parts. Part One, Challenging Current Perspectives, consists of seven essays that cover diverse ground such as cancer, worker health, brownfields, community as place, Native American experience, risk assessment, and economic reductionism. In The Social Production of Cancer: A Walk Upstream Sandra Steingraber writes of her own experience with bladder cancer and the lack of attention paid by researchers to potential environmental causes of a variety of cancers. She concludes with some guiding principles for reducing toxics. One of the principles she espouses is that of principle of least toxic alternative. It's not a bad idea. However, in order to determine the least toxic version of any chemical, some sort of risk assessment process is required. Other essays in the same volume argue that risk assessment is a science to be dismissed. Corporate America is on the hook in Charles Levenstein and John Wooding's essay Deconstructing Standards, Reconstructing Worker Health. They astutely assert, disease and injury are 'unintended consequences' of technological choices driven by financial imperative. (p. 39). They examine the history of worker protection standards and the clout of corporate America. They also provide some ideas on how to ameliorate corporate influence. These include the building of organizations that represent worker interests, changing attitudes and values of professionals in occupational safety fields who, the authors claim, are largely dominated by corporate interests (p. 53), and allowing communities to set their own standards for controlling polluting industries. Community involvement is central to the essay by William Shutkin and Rafael Mares' Brownfields and the Redevelopment of Communities: Linking Health, Economy and Justice. They examine the principles of brownfields, including its regulatory history and intent and provide suggestions for an improved brownfields process that not only considers economics but capital as well. They use two neighborhoods of Boston as examples of brownfields that work. Mindy and Robert Fullilove's essay Place Matters is perhaps the most abstract of all essays appearing in the book. They talk about place as a concept to which all should aspire. This place would ideally be the result of changing individual's precepts about where they live. And the way that is achieved, they claim, would be to think globally, act locally. How one Indian community responded to a hazardous waste site and their sense of place is the subject of Alice Tarbell and Mary Arquette's essay Akwesanse: A Native American Community's Resistance to Cultural and Environmental Damage. authors argue that well-meaning regulatory agencies try to resolve environmental issues with mandates and directives when they should amend problems by considering and cultural values and experience. …

Freight Ferries in New York–New Jersey Harbor: How to Make Them Happen

The potential for freight ferries in New York–New Jersey harbor is examined. Freight ferries are defined as fast ferries transporting high-value, time-sensitive cargo, particularly air cargo, but also courier packages and even premium passengers. The proposal by a private entity for freight ferries is consistent with the trends toward increased use of fast ferries nationally, and the incipient use of these ferries at several worldwide locations. In the greater New York–New Jersey metropolitan area, freight ferries offer several opportunities. These ferries help to remedy the ongoing problem of congestion in the New York–New Jersey metropolitan area, particularly on roads and at crossings associated with air cargo surface delivery. Air cargo brings high economic value to the region, but the congestion problem must be resolved to maintain that contribution. Freight ferries create synergies with other freight and passenger delivery services. These ferries can also spur redevelopment of waterfront communities, particularly those waterfront locations isolated from the rest of the metropolitan area. However, implementing freight ferries has its obstacles. The major hurdle is finding appropriate landing sites, which is difficult because of competing uses, failure to plan for landing sites, and labor considerations. Safety and air quality issues also need to be addressed. Elements of a bold plan to make freight ferries happen in the New York–New Jersey metropolitan region are suggested.

Community Redevelopment: A Look at the Educational System and its Impact on Work

Providing access to equal educational opportunities is vital to the survival of our communities, and society as a whole. Access to better educational opportunities would assist in creating viable pools of qualified workers. These individuals could contribute to the work force in many ways, as engineers, designers, service providers and entrepreneurs. This pool of workers would help to create and sustain economic power and stability. Statistics suggest that in the 21st century, underrepresented populations will encompass a large portion of the population. If our society is to remain competitive, not only will it be necessary to better develop the concept of equal educational opportunity, but it will also be imperative to put these ideas into practice. The lack of achievement in the elementary and high schools is beginning to manifest itself as seen in the college admission rates, college retention rates, as well as America's unemployment lines. The lack of foundation is creating a very unstable situation – the educationally disabled child, who will evolve into an adult who is unable to succeed on his or her own. This can lead to an individual who is outside the system – an individual who creates havoc in our communities. These problems are cyclical and, for the most part, each feeds on the other. In other words, the history that created a state of inferiority for these groups has created the inaccessibility to resources, that, in turn, evolved into the larger problem of low academic enrollments, high drop out rates and low/no employment. This conceptual paper attempts to address this issue of education and how it impacts the working environment.

Original Articles: Nitrogen Availability and Old-Field Succession in a Shortgrass Steppe

The relationship between soil nitrogen (N) availability and plant community structure was investigated in old-fields in the shortgrass steppe of Colorado. Nitrogen availability was manipulated by N or sucrose additions for 4 years at three old-fields (early-seral, mid-seral, and late-seral) and at an uncultivated control site. The addition of N generally resulted in increased abundance of annual forbs and grasses relative to perennials at all of the previously cultivated sites. Conversely, experimental reduction of N availability generally increased the relative abundance of perennials. Despite a lack of detectable differences in N mineralization between sites and treatments, ion-exchange resin bags confirmed that sucrose additions reduced plant-available N and that N additions increased plant-available N. This was evidenced further by similar observations for plant tissue N content. The degree to which N additions increased N availability at the various sites supported the idea that late-seral plant communities are less effective at N capture relative to earlier-seral communities. The mid-seral old-field had the lowest rates of litter decomposition and a relatively large accumulation of litter on the soil surface. This mid-seral old-field was dominated by an exotic annual grass (Bromus tectorum), which appears to be a major hindrance to redevelopment of the plant-soil system. By experimentally reducing N availability at this stage, we were able, in 4 years, to change the plant community into one that more closely resembled the late-seral community. We also observed that the natural recruitment of weedy annual species on the uncultivated site during an unusually wet year was suppressed by reducing N availability. Our results suggest that available N is an important factor controlling the rate and course of plant and soil community redevelopment on abandoned croplands in the shortgrass steppe, and that manipulation of N availability might be useful in restoration of rangeland vegetation.

ECOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS IN BROWNFIELDS REDEVELOPMENT

ECOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS IN BROWNFIELDS REDEVELOPMENT

Effects of Soil Fumigation and Seeding Regimes on Secondary Succession in a Semiarid Shrubland

In order to ascertain the degree to which disturbance and subsequent recovery of belowground biotic components (mycorrhizal and decomposer systems) influence successional dynamics, a portion of semiarid shrubland in northwest Colorado was mechanically disturbed in 1984. Two treatments, soil fumigation (fumigated with methyl bromide and not fumigated) and seeding (early-seral species, late-seral species, and not seeded) were imposed on 500 m2 plots in each of four replications. Aboveground annual production by species, and decomposition rates were measured in 1991, 7 years after the initial disturbance and treatments. Mycorrhizal infection potential had been previously measured at this site from 1984-1988. Seeding to late-seral species resulted in greater production rates (and greater community composition) of late-seral species, whereas seeding to early-seral species had only a minor effect when compared to unseeded plots 7 years after disturbance. Fumigation slowed the rate of succession on unseeded plots, primarily by decreased production of perennial grasses. Mycorrhizal infection potential, initially greatly reduced by the disturbance and by fumigation, recovered to near-background levels on unfumigated plots but not on fumigated plots after 4 years. Decomposition experiments suggest that seeding may have facilitated recovery of the decomposer system after initial disturbance and fumigation. Our results suggest that the redevelopment of soil biotic communities following disturbance has a significant impact on successional dynamics, particularly the replacement of early-seral annuals by mid-seral perennial grasses.

Local governance: a model of sustainable rural resource management for the Third World

Global integration is creating opportunities for new strategies for rural development that revalue the contribution of traditional production strategies. These new strategies involve the redevelopment of peasant communities, carving out political spaces to allow them to exercise their autonomy, and defining ways in which their organisations will guide production for themselves and for commerce with the rest of the society. This approach offers succour to rural communities, by providing a means to diversify production that offers an opportunity for the society to confront the challenges of environmental management and conservation in an active and meaningful way, with a group of people uniquely qualified for such activities.

Managing Decline: Japan's Coal Industry Restructuring and Community Response

For many years, coal formed the backbone of Japan's economic development, but the dangers and costs of mining became increasingly expensive for the industry and government. Global changes in coal production and exchange finally prompted Japan's decision in 1986 to shut down nearly all domestic coal mines in favour of coal imports. Japan's policy for industry restructuring had been applauded as one of the most comprehensive in addressing the needs of the industry, the workers and the community. At micro-level, however, the people in the community most affected by the policy decision have been excluded from the process. This text reveals the stratified effects, as well as compensation, for the different groups in Yubari City, Hokkaido. Although the policy settlement package goes to the coal miners, community redevelopment ignores their needs, prompting them to leave the city and benefiting instead land owners and public employees. Revealed as well are the ways in which Japan's cultural values, particularly the vertical social structure as it affects decision making, status, occupations and company organization and the importance of maintaining the family system, figure in the policy process and its consequences.

Modelling the heritage world: Economic, legal and political considerations

The economic literature on heritage has primarily analysed the impact of building preservation on real‐estate values and community redevelopment. Recently, economists have expanded their study on heritage to include everything from historic buildings and antiques to museums and monuments. However, this research ignores the political and legal characteristics of heritage and is used primarily to justify government expenditures on heritage. The economic study of heritage should include a conceptual framework to explain the process through which certain artefacts acquire historic significance and value. This framework would provide guidance to establish which economic agents form part of the heritage world and what incentives guide them to join it. With this framework in place., we can evaluate how the tools used by these agents to obtain their own goals affect the provision of historic resources.

Challenging uneven development: an urban agenda for the 1990s

The editors and contributors to this volume are not willing to accept what is known as uneven development, where some cities win and some lose. They look at two practical consequences of urban growth: the change in residence patterns as neighborhoods gentrify, and the change in employment patterns, as factory workers lose jobs and white-collar workers gain jobs. The editors' goal is to highlight the alternatives to uneven development and to the growth ideology. They outline and advocate specific policies, including affordable housing, changes in taxation, and direct community participation in planning and zoning decisions. Challenging Uneven Development begins with a rousing discussion of the pervasiveness of the community redevelopment ideology. The growth machine defines the language of the debate. The next group of chapters examine residence patterns--how communities have organized to fight gentrification, why residential integration is essential for good planning as well as morality, and what strategies can be used to achieve racial diversity. Another chapter emphasizes the role of lenders in regulating the flow of credit within communities. Disinvestment by credit providers causes decline, and opens the way for gentrification, which displaces local residents. The impact of taxes in stimulating the growth machine is also explained. Later chapters move beyond gentrification issues to examine other problems of economic restructuring. They look at how blacks, Latinos, and women have been affected by the growth of service sector jobs. The final chapter serves as a strategic guide to those who wish to establish a progressive agenda for community-based economic development. The authors call for social change, not unimaginative reform.The contributors to this volume are leaders or researchers from community organizations, civic groups, government agencies, and universities. In addition to the editors, they are Mel King, Teresa Cordova, Daniel Lauber, Jena Pogge, David Flax-Hatch, Arthur Lyons, Wendy Wintermute, Charles Hicklin, Jeffrey D. Reckinger, David Mosena, Charlotte Chun, Raymndo Flores, Luther Snow, Deborah Bennett, John Betancur, and Patricia Wright. They have presented state-of-the-art progressive policy solutions for urban problems.

Building Blade Runner

In Febuary, 1990, at a public lecture series on art in Los Angeles, three out of five leading urban planners agreed that they hoped someday L.A. would look like the film Blade Runner. The audience, safe and comfortable in the Pacific Design Center, buzzed audibly with concern. One could practically hear rumors starting, that it was time to sell that condo by the beach, and move to Seattle. Two of the designers gave specific examples. They loved Santee alley, a bustling outdoor market in the downtown garment center, also not far from the homeless district. Of course, that general area is slated for urban renewal anyway, so this was a safe comment. It is easy to root for the horse once it is off to the glue factory. Another planner, architect for the powerful Community Redevelopment Agency, praised the Interstate Savings and Loan logo atop the new eighty-storey office building on the main library grounds downtown. It reminded him favorably of Blade Runner. That drew an audible hiss, so he added that in thirty years that bank would be out of business anyway, and the logo would be gone. Then he admitted that he had approved the logo because there was no way to stop businesses from getting permits to put one on buildings downtown (the governing rule, set up by the downtown redevelopment agency, allows for logos, though the full title of a company is considered invasive ambience over advertising). He was saying, in effect, why not allow free enterprise to show its face honestly, without the seamless camouflage? We need more than cityscapes and skylines, he and the others were suggesting. Apparently, we need the rude aesthetics of an immigrant market, but imagine it safely barricaded between buildings hundreds of feet high. We want to return to a fanciful version of the urban ghetto, back to cluttered industrial imagery, away from the simplified urban grid. We need Blade Runner (or do we?). The film Blade Runner has indeed achieved something rare in the history of cinema. It has become a paradigm for the future of cities, for artists across the disciplines. It is undoubtedly the film most requested in art and film classes I teach, whether to environmental designers, illustrators, fine artists, photographers or filmmakers. When it came out in 1982, many critics called it the success of style over substance, or style over story. But the hum of that Vangelis score against the skyline of L.A. in

Bureaucracy nd Community Organization

An analysis of the relationship between the Pico-Union Neighborhood Council (PUNC) and the Community Redevelopment Agency of Los Angeles reveals the pressure of bureaucratic perspectives and role demands to be a significant factor in the interaction of public agencies and community organizations. In spite of independent funding, this neighborhood council has moved from militant advocacy, with broad community par ticipation. to community development directed largely by professionals, with substan tially reduced involvement from community residents. This transformation is examined through an analysis of the perspectives and roles of these two organizations as well as those of the technical advisers from the University of California at Los Angeles. The pressure of role demands and the dynamics of modernization are presented as explana tions for the changes which took place in PUNC. Three major considerations for puhlic administrators of agencies involved with community organizations are discussed.