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What makes Holistic Neighborhood Development unique?
Place-Based
One of the greatest indicators of one’s life-long economic mobility is the neighborhood in which one lives. HND asserts that place is the most important factor to consider when seeking long-term outcomes, and it is one of the most neglected lenses within traditional poverty alleviation tactics. Place allows us to go deep, work broadly, and invest in the long-haul for real results.
Proximity
We cannot solve anything from a distance. We have to draw near, enter into relationship, and open ourselves up to the possibility of mutual transformation. Transactional giving between strangers will never end poverty. You cannot serve someone out of poverty. HND leads with neighboring and relationship.
Integrative
Poverty is neither caused, sustained, or solved by any one thing; it is the dynamic intersection of multiple factors, systems, and circumstances. The “holistic” dimension of HND is about committing to comprehensive engagement that seeks innovative, integrative strategies for long-term outcomes.
Agile
Cities, people, opinions, policies, and economies can all change in the blink of an eye. Strategies that worked last year might night work in the next. Work done for months may come up empty and expectations may get upended at a moment’s notice. HND can create real change because it is flexible and adaptive, constantly committed to the best, healthiest approach, even if that means a radical course correction mid-stream. We do not seek the perpetuation of our program; it is always about the thriving of a community and whatever it takes to make that happen.
Impact-Oriented
Results matter. Not activity, not busyness, not arbitrary program numbers, but impact. They may be hard to come by, hard to define, or hard to measure, but they are core to what it means to commit to HND. We want to see lives and communities thriving, not dependent on external support year after year. We do not settle for less than true and lasting change.
Data-Driven
Flourishing communities is not just a big vision for us. It is a process we have developed with tools to track and measure the health of a place. This process will define and create the strategies that will lead to long-term, lasting change in your neighborhood.
SEGREGATION BY DESIGN | Jessica Trounstine
Joining here to help us understand why we are where we are is Dr. Jessica Trounstine, Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University. Professor Trounstine studies the process and quality of representation in American democracy, focusing on how formal and informal local political institutions generate inequalities. She has served as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Justice, city governments, and various community organizations; and serves on numerous editorial and foundation boards.
Listen in as we discuss her most recent award-winning book, Segregation by Design: Local Politics and Inequality in American Cities.
CHANGING AMERICAN NEIGHBORHOOD | Alan Mallach
Urbanist, author, and scholar Alan Mallach joins us here to talk about neighborhood change. Alan is a senior fellow with the Center for Community Progress in Washington D.C and has worked with, among others, the Brookings Institution, the Federal Reserve, and Rutgers University. He is a leading voice in how poverty and prosperity are connected to the places in which we live.
Listen in as we discuss his most recent book, The Changing American Neighborhood, which explores the role of neighborhoods in American society and the challenges they face today.
THE INJUSTICE OF PLACE | Kathryn J. Edin
We need a renewal of our thinking about what we call poverty. If we want to understand disadvantage better and therefore be better suited to create real solutions, we need to put the center on places, instead of on people.
Joining us to help reframe our thinking, is Dr. Kathryn J. Edin, professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs. She specializes in the study of people living on welfare. Her reporting has been cited as essential material for understanding the lived experience of poverty in America. Recently Dr. Edin and her team were contacted by RWJF to research poverty from the lens of place. The result of that work is the book we are talking about, The Injustice of Place.