Reclaiming Your Community: You Don't Have to Move out of Your Neighborhood to Live in a Better One
Majora Carter shows how brain drain cripples low-status communities and maps out a development strategy focused on talent retention to help them break out of economic stagnation.

"My musical, In the Heights, explores issues of community, gentrification, identity and home, and the question: Are happy endings only ones that involve getting out of your neighborhood to achieve your dreams? In her refreshing new book, Majora Carter writes about these issues with great insight and clarity, asking us to re-examine our notions of what community development is and how we invest in the futures of our hometowns. This is an exciting conversation worth joining.”
—Lin-Manuel Miranda

How can we solve the problem of persistent poverty in low-status communities? Majora Carter argues that these areas need a talent-retention strategy, just like the ones companies have. Retaining homegrown talent is a critical part of creating a strong local economy that can resist gentrification. But too many people born in low-status communities measure their success by how far away from them they can get.

Carter, who could have been one of them, returned to the South Bronx and devised a development strategy rooted in the conviction that these communities have the resources within themselves to succeed. She advocates measures such as

  • Building mixed-income instead of exclusively low-income housing to create a diverse and robust economic ecosystem
  • Showing homeowners how to maximize the long-term value of their property so they won’t succumb to quick-cash offers from speculators
  • Keeping people and dollars in the community by developing vibrant “third spaces”—restaurants, bookstores, and places like Carter’s own Boogie Down Grind Cafe

  • This is a profoundly personal book. Carter writes about her brother’s murder, how turning a local dumping ground into an award-winning park opened her eyes to the hidden potential in her community, her struggles as a woman of color confronting the “male and pale” real estate and nonprofit establishments, and much more. It is a powerful rethinking of poverty, economic development, and the meaning of success.
    1139395228
    Reclaiming Your Community: You Don't Have to Move out of Your Neighborhood to Live in a Better One
    Majora Carter shows how brain drain cripples low-status communities and maps out a development strategy focused on talent retention to help them break out of economic stagnation.

    "My musical, In the Heights, explores issues of community, gentrification, identity and home, and the question: Are happy endings only ones that involve getting out of your neighborhood to achieve your dreams? In her refreshing new book, Majora Carter writes about these issues with great insight and clarity, asking us to re-examine our notions of what community development is and how we invest in the futures of our hometowns. This is an exciting conversation worth joining.”
    —Lin-Manuel Miranda

    How can we solve the problem of persistent poverty in low-status communities? Majora Carter argues that these areas need a talent-retention strategy, just like the ones companies have. Retaining homegrown talent is a critical part of creating a strong local economy that can resist gentrification. But too many people born in low-status communities measure their success by how far away from them they can get.

    Carter, who could have been one of them, returned to the South Bronx and devised a development strategy rooted in the conviction that these communities have the resources within themselves to succeed. She advocates measures such as

  • Building mixed-income instead of exclusively low-income housing to create a diverse and robust economic ecosystem
  • Showing homeowners how to maximize the long-term value of their property so they won’t succumb to quick-cash offers from speculators
  • Keeping people and dollars in the community by developing vibrant “third spaces”—restaurants, bookstores, and places like Carter’s own Boogie Down Grind Cafe

  • This is a profoundly personal book. Carter writes about her brother’s murder, how turning a local dumping ground into an award-winning park opened her eyes to the hidden potential in her community, her struggles as a woman of color confronting the “male and pale” real estate and nonprofit establishments, and much more. It is a powerful rethinking of poverty, economic development, and the meaning of success.
    21.95 In Stock
    Reclaiming Your Community: You Don't Have to Move out of Your Neighborhood to Live in a Better One

    Reclaiming Your Community: You Don't Have to Move out of Your Neighborhood to Live in a Better One

    by Majora Carter
    Reclaiming Your Community: You Don't Have to Move out of Your Neighborhood to Live in a Better One

    Reclaiming Your Community: You Don't Have to Move out of Your Neighborhood to Live in a Better One

    by Majora Carter

    Paperback

    $21.95 
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    Overview

    Majora Carter shows how brain drain cripples low-status communities and maps out a development strategy focused on talent retention to help them break out of economic stagnation.

    "My musical, In the Heights, explores issues of community, gentrification, identity and home, and the question: Are happy endings only ones that involve getting out of your neighborhood to achieve your dreams? In her refreshing new book, Majora Carter writes about these issues with great insight and clarity, asking us to re-examine our notions of what community development is and how we invest in the futures of our hometowns. This is an exciting conversation worth joining.”
    —Lin-Manuel Miranda

    How can we solve the problem of persistent poverty in low-status communities? Majora Carter argues that these areas need a talent-retention strategy, just like the ones companies have. Retaining homegrown talent is a critical part of creating a strong local economy that can resist gentrification. But too many people born in low-status communities measure their success by how far away from them they can get.

    Carter, who could have been one of them, returned to the South Bronx and devised a development strategy rooted in the conviction that these communities have the resources within themselves to succeed. She advocates measures such as

  • Building mixed-income instead of exclusively low-income housing to create a diverse and robust economic ecosystem
  • Showing homeowners how to maximize the long-term value of their property so they won’t succumb to quick-cash offers from speculators
  • Keeping people and dollars in the community by developing vibrant “third spaces”—restaurants, bookstores, and places like Carter’s own Boogie Down Grind Cafe

  • This is a profoundly personal book. Carter writes about her brother’s murder, how turning a local dumping ground into an award-winning park opened her eyes to the hidden potential in her community, her struggles as a woman of color confronting the “male and pale” real estate and nonprofit establishments, and much more. It is a powerful rethinking of poverty, economic development, and the meaning of success.

    Product Details

    ISBN-13: 9781523000296
    Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
    Publication date: 02/01/2022
    Pages: 240
    Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)

    About the Author

    Majora Carter is senior program director at Groundswell, a nonprofit that builds community power through equitable clean energy initiatives, as well as an urban revitalization strategy consultant, real estate developer, MacArthur Fellow, and Peabody Award–winning broadcaster. Carter founded and led the nonprofit environmental justice solutions corporation Sustainable South Bronx from 2001 onward before entering the private sector in 2008 with the Majora Carter Group. In 2017, she launched the Boogie Down Grind Cafe, the first commercial third space in the Hunts Point section of the South Bronx since the mid-1980s.

    Table of Contents

    Preface ix

    Glossary of Terms I Use xiii

    Introduction: There Goes the Neighborhood 1

    Chapter 1 Measuring Success by How Far You Get Away from Your Community 5

    Chapter 2 Geeky Little Kid in the Ghetto 9

    Chapter 3 Conditions for Brain Drain: How to Disinvite Your Hometown Heroes 19

    Chapter 4 When Everything Tells You the Same Thing, You'll Probably Believe It 27

    Chapter 5 Daring to Name Our Dreams 33

    Chapter 6 Convenient Prey: If You're Not at the Table, You're on the Menu 43

    Chapter 7 Why Must We Do Real Estate Development the Same Old Way? 51

    Chapter 8 Success Doesn't Live around Here for Long 57

    Chapter 9 If They Don't See It, They Won't Believe It 71

    Chapter 10 Garbage and a Golden Ball 73

    Chapter 11 Despite Incredulity, Planning with Joy 83

    Chapter 12 Stay in Your Lane 91

    Chapter 13 Sellout 105

    Chapter 14 Controversy: Teachable Moments 121

    Chapter 15 So What Is the Problem? 133

    Chapter 16 Constant Yearning 139

    Chapter 17 The Illusion of a Perfect Opportunity 151

    Chapter 18 Real-Life Examples Form a New Narrative 167

    Chapter 19 Idea to Reality = Discipline + Work + Time 183

    Epilogue 193

    Discussion Guide 197

    Notes 201

    Acknowledgments 209

    Index 211

    About the Author 223

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