Explore Ideas in Progress from the Center for Urban Research
The Center for Urban Research is committed to open dialogue around the challenges and possibilities of neighborhood revitalization. This page shares in-progress ideas and evolving perspectives from our team, with the goal of sparking conversation and inviting feedback.
Each topic includes materials designed to support reflection or facilitate group discussion. We invite community members, researchers, and practitioners to explore, question, and contribute to these conversations.
Current Topics
Blurb / Gallery Set
What if the key to safer, healthier, and more economically vibrant cities is not individual programs, but the design of neighborhoods themselves? This paper examines whether the 100 largest U.S. cities treat “healthy neighborhoods” as a core planning goal in the Jane Jacobs sense: walkable, mixed-use, dense, socially vibrant urban environments. It finds that only Portland, Houston, and Atlanta explicitly frame neighborhood policy this way, while many other cities pursue similar ideas under terms like “complete neighborhoods” or “20-minute cities.” Most cities still use “healthy neighborhoods” primarily in a public-health context focused on issues like housing safety and disease prevention. The paper concludes that although Jacobs-style urban planning is growing, the lack of shared language limits coordination, policy learning, and advocacy across cities.
How Can We Grow Commercial Corridors Without Displacing Local Businesses?
Explore how cities can invest in streetscape improvements and attract vibrant, community-serving businesses without displacing long-standing local anchors. This conversation examines zoning incentives, tax tools, tenant protections, and strategies to balance economic growth with neighborhood stability and walkability.
Atlanta doesn’t have a housing shortage; it has a neighborhood imbalance. While prices soar in high-demand areas, other parts of the city sit underinvested with vacant homes and untapped potential. New data on housing “filtering” shows that affordability breaks down when neighborhood markets break down.
What if fixing neighborhoods, not flooding the city with subsidies, is the real solution?
Taking the Temperature of Urban Health: Neighborhood Operating Impact
The statistics and dashboards that city officials use to inform their decisions are often outdated by the time they are analyzed and applied. Explore a new tool, the Neighborhood Operating Impact, which can quickly assess the financial health of a neighborhood and how it changes over time.
Neighborhood Reputations and Place Branding: Why do they matter?
Explore the importance of neighborhood brand and reputation, how a neighborhood's brand and residents influence each other, and how residents can use place branding to guide the future of their neighborhood.
What is Displacement and How do We Measure It?
Explore how neighborhood revitalization efforts aim to promote inclusive, mixed-income communities while preventing the displacement of long-term, low-income residents of color.