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February 06, 2001
Book Review: Comeback Cities
Community development corporations spotlighted in recent book on revitalizing cities.
SocialFunds.com --
Comeback Cities is a book filled with hope, optimism and prescriptions for bringing life back to
neglected urban neighborhoods. Authors Paul S. Grogan and Tony Proscio examine how a mix of
public-private partnerships, grassroots organizations and a willingness to innovate have been
effective in solving urban problems. The book highlights several catalysts of positive urban
change, including one type of grassroots organization known as Community Development Corporations
(CDCs).
 The authors explain that CDC's were born in the late
1960's as part of the "riot ideology" of city residents attempting to take control over their
neighborhoods. In the beginning, the groups were often successful because their "inexpert
leadership" gave them the freedom to experiment with novel types of programs. Many CDC's started
by establishing one product or service that solved one problem. With this experience and community
support, CDC's graduated to additional services.
The issue that many CDC's target first is
affordable housing. Grogan and Proscio report that CDC's were building affordable housing units at
a rate of 40,000 a year in 1994. This rate is faster than the federal government's pace during the
heyday of public housing construction.
Grogan and Proscio tell many inspiring tales of the
people, politics and power that helped many struggling communities become "comeback cities." From
Boston and Cleveland to Houston and San Francisco and on to the Bronx and Milwaukee, one of the
untold stories is the role of CDC's in helping to breathe life into areas where there was only
rubble and broken dreams.
For example, the authors cite Chicago-based Bethel New Life CDC
as an organization that utilizes creativity and innovation to meet the needs of its community. It
completed its first housing rehabilitation project in 1979 with an investment fund of $9,600.
Since then, the group's accomplishments include building or rehabilitating 1,000 houses and
apartments, placing 4,000 people in full-time jobs, and building a health center and a recycling
center.
CDC's have grown slowly over the years without the one-size-fits-all answer that
often comes with government programs. This organic growth process came without the impossible
expectations of well-funded, publicly scrutinized initiatives. Instead, Grogan and Proscio tell of
CDC's working behind the scenes, often with funding from foundations, to organize and mediate
between private investors, public agencies, and other community groups.
CDC's have often
bucked prevailing political domination to deliver results that various stakeholders can claim as
their own success. As the authors report, "The best CDC's are actually a way for ordinary people
to change, create and making use market forces to alter the fundamental economics of their
neighborhoods. They are to urban development what start-up companies are to the business world: a
channel through which individual energies and ingenuity tap and transform the wider market."
CDC's are but one player among the many required to revitalize cities. Local government,
businesses, civic organizations and religious groups also play important roles. But as Grogan and
Proscio argue, CDC's can provide "the vision, a market stimulus, and eventually some technical help
to the other players."
Buy this book at Amazon.com
Bethel New Life
CDC
©
SRI World Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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