Beyond Bricks and Sticks

A weekly digest of current trends in housing and community development. The discussion examines topics from infrastructure to community fabric.

The Best Planning Apps for 2016

(RECAP: Mobile apps can enhance civic engagement and advocacy in local governance and planning, make more efficient use of time in data collection and analysis for planners, and provide a slew of other functions. Here are a few apps planners told us about that are particularly interesting.)

http://www.planetizen.com/node/82996

Vacant Spaces into Vibrant Places 

(RECAP: Founded in 2010, the Center for Community Progress is the only national nonprofit organization solely dedicated to building a future in which entrenched, systemic blight no longer exists in American communities. Its mission is to ensure that communities have the vision, knowledge and systems to transform blighted, vacant and other problem properties into assets supporting neighborhood vitality.)

http://www.communityprogress.net

Housing Virginia Toolkit 

(RECAP: Don’t recreate the wheel. This Toolkit offers templates and “how to” guides for defining the issues, researching best practices, creating messages, finding allies and conducting an effective campaign to influence policy makers and other leaders on affordable housing in your community.)

http://www.housingvirginia.org/housing-virginia-toolkit/

The New American Dream: A Rental of One’s Own

(RECAP: Homeownership is down and leasing is up, the result of the realities of today’s economy. The current Great Reset from owning to renting is occurring not only because many people prefer urban-style living, but because more flexible rental housing in denser areas is more in sync with the knowledge economy.)
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/suburban-homeowners-to-urban-tenants/463113/