Amid the worst renter crisis in a generation, it is time for policymakers to respond to the call for rent control to protect renters from skyrocketing rents and displacement. Rent control has tremendous payoff: if the rent control policies being debated right now in six states and two cities become reality, 12.7 million renter households will be stabilized. If adopted by states nationwide, 42 million households could be stabilized.

• Read the full report on how rent control can build stable, healthy communities. This report was produced by a collaboration between PolicyLink, the Center for Popular Democracy, and the Right To The City Alliance.
• Our Homes, Our Future: How Rent Control Can Build Stable, Healthy Communities (Executive Summary)
• Rent Control Myths Versus Reality: The Evidence on Unintended Consequences

Sarah Treuhaft highlights key findings from the report, and speakers from Oregon and New York will discuss their local campaigns and the growing movement led by renters to push for stronger tenant protection laws. View the webinar recording.

Winter 2014 edition of the National Civic Review features Judith Bell and Larry Cohen discussing the Convergence Partnership’s approach to place-based environmental and policy change, using the power of collaboration to create a “field of fields.”

This curriculum, conceived as a PowerPoint presentation, is based in the recognition of the central importance of housing and neighborhood opportunity to the social determinants of health. Homes, neighborhoods, air and water quality have significant implications for population health, but have not been widely considered in housing planning, and rarely through a racial equity lens. The curriculum addresses social determinant factors such as exposure to toxics/crime/physical stressors; access to secure, adequate, affordable housing; socioeconomic status; access to fresh and healthy foods; educational attainment; and racial and social isolation. A focus on social determinants looks for solutions beyond medical care and the treatment of diseases and chronic conditions, and toward prevention strategies and the equitable development of communities. The narrative document, a facilitator’s guide, supports the PowerPoint presentation and can be used to guide stakeholders through the steps of an effective equitable healthy housing planning process. The facilitator’s guide is annotated with the corresponding slide numbers of the PowerPoint.

The Competitive Advantage of Racial Equity, and the accompanying op-ed in Fortune, both produced in partnership with FSG. It is our aspiration that these business strategies will complement the push, from outside and inside corporations, for more fair and equitable operations.

The report goes beyond the essential ingredient of workforce diversity, as a means for business to address past and continuing discrimination while improving their competitiveness, to challenge the corporate sector to affirmatively advance racial equity through its products, services, and public policy positions.

Find all related material for The Corporate Racial Equity Advantage

ArtPlace commissioned Transportation for America (T4A) to write and produce a rigorous national examination of creative placemaking in the transportation planning process. This resource identifies ways that transportation professionals can integrate artists to deliver transportation projects more smoothly, improve safety, and build community support. This field scan explores seven of the most pressing challenges facing the transportation sector today and identifies how arts and cultural strategies can contribute to solutions.

The diversity of the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area region is a tremendous economic asset – if people of color are fully included as workers, entrepreneurs, and innovators. Equitable growth is the path to sustained economic prosperity. In fact, closing racial gaps in income would boost the regional economy by more than $200 billion. The 2017 Nine-County Bay Area Equity Profile complements an initial five-county profile released two years ago and recently updated. Read the profile.

Author(s): Benjamin W. Chrisinger, Stanford Prevention Research Center, Stanford University School of Medicine

Across the U.S., neighborhoods face disparate healthy food access, which has motivated federal, state, and local initiatives to develop supermarkets in “food deserts.” Differences in the implementation of these initiatives are evident, including the presence of health programming, yet no comprehensive inventory of projects exists to assess their impact. Using a variety of data sources, this paper provides details on all supermarket developments under “fresh food financing” regimes in the U.S. from 2004-2015, including information such as project location, financing, development, and the presence of health promotion efforts. The analysis identifies 126 projects, which have been developed in a majority of states, with concentrations in the mid-Atlantic and Southern California regions. Average store size was approximately 28,100 square feet, and those receiving financial assistance from local sources and New Markets Tax Credits were significantly larger, while those receiving assistance from other federal sources were significantly smaller. About 24 percent included health-oriented features; of these, over 80 percent received federal financing. If new supermarkets alone are insufficient for health behavior change, greater attention to these nuances is needed from program designers, policymakers, and advocates who seek to continue fresh food financing programs. Efforts to reduce rates of diet-related disease by expanding food access can be improved by taking stock of existing efforts.