Social Enterprise Initiative

Revitalized Cities: From the Grassroots Up

Social Enterprise Newsletter, Winter 2001

book cover: Comeback Cities

After decades of profound decline and doomsaying, America's inner cities are being made more livable, more attractive to businesses and investors, and more inviting to people of various income levels. Paul Grogan and Tony Proscio examine the growing urban revitalization movement in their new book, Comeback Cities: A Blueprint for Urban Neighborhood Revival (Westview Press, 2000). Grogan is currently Harvard University's vice president for government, community, and public affairs, and a member of the HBS Social Enterprise faculty. He is also the former president and CEO of the nonprofit Local Initia-tives Support Corporation. Tony Proscio is a former associate editor of The Miami Herald, and is now a consultant on urban affairs and economic development to foundations and nonprofit organizations.

In Comeback Cities, they expertly chart four trends that have propelled this guardedly optimistic story:

  • The maturing of the rapidly expanding grassroots revitalization movement in America. Frustrated residents have formed thousands of neighborhood-based nonprofit organizations to address housing, investment, school reform, and crime.
  • The rebirth of functioning markets in long-desolate neighborhoods. Fed by the success of the revitalization groups, the long economic boom of the 1990s, and a credit and investment revolution, jobs and commerce are returning to cities. The drop in crime. Such factors as police reform, community involvement, and the expanding revitalization have contributed to the decrease in crime and have helped take the element of fear from people's residential and investment decisions.
  • The drop in crime. Such factors as police reform, community involvement, and the expanding revitalization have contributed to the decrease in crime and have helped take the element of fear from people's residential and investment decisions.
  • The deregulation of the failed public systems of welfare, housing, and schools. Formed with the noblest intentions, these massive, immovable systems have begun to disintegrate in the wake of legislative reform and community action.

Casting aside liberal and conservative ideologies, Grogan and Proscio draw up an agenda that connects local successes with public and private sector support to accelerate these promising forces. They bring good news and sound a call to combine these four forces into a single blueprint for healthier neighborhoods and more prosperous cities.