Smart Growth Around America

The Cleveland housing market is experiencing a disaster of nearly biblical proportions. Last year, more than 13,000 foreclosure cases were filed in Cuyahoga County, which includes the greater Cleveland area. In response, the County Commissioners assembled the Cuyahoga County Land Bank, a non-profit organization dedicated to acquiring and restoring vacant properties into productive parts of the community. Last month the land bank took a leap forward by forging a unique agreement with mortgage giant Fannie Mae that could be a game-changer for the distressed Cleveland region — and a model for other communities hit hard by the foreclosure crisis nationwide.

The public health field often looks at changing individual behavior to get better outcomes – we offer driver’s education to prevent accidents, or conduct public service announcements about the importance of exercise to lower obesity levels. New research on violent crime helps illustrate the fact that the choices people make are influenced by the places they live, and that what we choose to do with the physical space in our communities can play a critical role in our efforts to help keep people safer and healthier.

Tweet Image from “Steel Valley: Meltdown” (This post was written by National Vacant Properties Campaign intern Ryan Kraske.) Over fifty people gathered on Capitol Hill last Thursday in support of new legislation that would strengthen cities and metropolitan areas that have experienced large-scale property vacancy and abandonment. The Community Regeneration, Sustainability, and Innovation Act of [...]

Tweet Are you interested in learning more about the way that the Regeneration Act currently before Congress could aid struggling communities, or about how other struggling communities are developing forward-thinking approaches to rebuild their economies, create urban food systems, and supply amenities like parks and green space? If you’re in the DC area next week, [...]

Tweet Vacant homes are becoming an increasingly visible problem in this country — some 15% of all homes in the second quarter of 2009 are sitting empty, according to the US Census Bureau. That’s 18.7 million unoccupied homes slowly decaying on lots across the country. Yet there’s no lack of people in this country who [...]

In a recent landmark decision, Cleveland Judge Raymond Pianka held lender Wells-Fargo responsible for failing to maintain their large holding of foreclosed properties. This will be the first lending institution to be held accountable for neglecting to maintain their foreclosed properties, abandoning them, and leaving cities to “clean up the mess.” The problem is a significant one for cities trying to keep foreclosure and vacancy from causing even greater damage to cities already under pressure. As Smart Growth America staff member Mara D’Angelo writes in Next American City:

Tweet Abandoned Flint home; image courtesy NPR Times are tough in Flint, Michigan. And truthfully, times have been tough for quite some time now. Once home to General Motors and to more than 230,000 people, this rust-belt city has been losing residents for decades. The population of Flint today is nearly half of what it [...]

Tweet Today in Louisville, Kentucky, hundreds are taking part in the opening day of the second Reclaiming Vacant Properties Conference. The conference is a ray of hope in the midst of our housing and economic crises — and an incubator for the ideas and solutions that can bring prosperity back to the cities, communities and [...]

Tweet 2008_09_08_bos-ord-sna_069 Originally uploaded by dsearls Randhurst Mall in Anaheim, California Mt. Prospect, Illinois with a nearly empty parking lot. Compare the size of the building to the size of the total lot. In many places around the United States, the construction of the enclosed shopping mall sounded the death knell for historic downtowns and [...]

Last spring, Chris Leinberger wrote in The Atlantic that the pendulum was slowly shifting away from suburban life due to our country’s changing demographics, growing public demand for “urban” amenities like walkable neighborhoods and better transportation options, and the overbuilding of exurban housing — far from jobs and highly inconvenient when gas gets expensive.

Tweet News of continued foreclosures comes on top of the painful slow motion train wreck we’ve been watching for several years, with the foreclosure rate skyrocketing since 2006.  No one knows how many of these now-foreclosed properties are vacant or will soon be abandoned, but anecdotal evidence suggests that the numbers are dire. Community leaders [...]

Tweet Last week, nearly 650 people gathered in Pittsburgh, PA for Reclaiming Vacant Properties, the first ever national conference on the topic. The conference was the culmination of years of dreaming and working by the National Vacant Properties Campaign. Over 500 people were registered before the event, but the large number of walk-up registrants Monday [...]

Tweet Most of the SGA staff was in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania last week for Reclaiming Vacant Properties, the first ever national conference on the issue of vacant properties. We’ll have some pictures and stories to follow in the next few days, but we wanted to alert you to a related chat taking place on the Washington [...]