Working Neighborhoods

1. 19.

   https://21visions.urbandesignforum.org/working-neighborhoods#19Share

   Reinvest in commercial corridors in communities of color to sustain local businesses and help residents thrive.

   • Challenge: Nearly 240,000 small businesses may never make it through the pandemic, dramatically weakening the cultural and economic fabric of our neighborhoods.

   • Invest in the public realm to improve connectivity for small businesses and patrons.

     Read 6 Ideas

     • Consolidate leadership of city agencies that oversee work in the public realm to require a fair distribution and maintenance of walkable streetscapes, beautiful parks, and accessible transit. (See Design Excellence for more details.)

     • Expand pedestrianization, cycling infrastructure and public transportation in every neighborhood to improve access to storefronts, expanding on the success of similar programs like the Community Parks Initiative.

     • Expand the “Clean Curbs” program for better sanitation collection citywide to include increased city funding for underinvested commercial corridors and community partners.

     • Expand NYC SBS’s Neighborhood 360° Program and explore the creation of neighborhood-based conservancies that could embed designers and specialists in hardest-hit communities to support marketing, visual merchandising, lease negotiation and other needed services.

     • Demand universal internet access, prioritizing investments in neighborhoods with the lowest broadband access first, in order to help small businesses take advantage of new digital tools and a greater web presence.

     • Support continued experimentation around outdoor retail operations on streetscapes and public spaces by expanding the City's Open Restaurants, Open Storefronts, and Open Culture programs.

   • Develop planning and financing tools to create new affordable small business space.

     Read 3 Ideas

     • Create development incentives that deliver new affordable commercial space in neighborhoods across the city, expanding on the success of the Essex Market redevelopment.

     • Develop a non-profit commercial development fund for the creation of affordable commercial space, drawing on the City’s non-profit industrial development fund.

     • Extend creative zoning bonuses that will create public benefits to support the economic mobility of residents – such as public schools, affordable commercial space, workforce training centers, and libraries – in new private developments.

   • Leverage vacant public property to encourage community-led economic growth.

     Read 3 Ideas

     • Create a city-controlled land bank of both city-owned vacant lots and recently acquired distressed properties as a result of the pandemic.

     • Drawing on the Anchorage Community Land Trust, encourage the growth of commercial community land trusts on underutilized public land to develop affordable housing, affordable local retail, credit unions, and community space.

     • Explore reparative policies that would support the transfer of public assets to Black businesses and residents.

   Case Study

   Anchorage, Alaska – Anchorage Community Land Trust

2. 20.

   https://21visions.urbandesignforum.org/working-neighborhoods#20Share

   Drive green economic growth in the communities hardest hit by climate change.

   • Challenge: Most small businesses and working communities face difficulties in accessing training and certification in emerging industries like energy retrofits, which make it challenging to compete with larger and well-resourced firms.

   • Support minority-, women-, and employee-owned businesses to prosper in the building retrofit market.

     Read 4 Ideas

     • As the city prepares to retrofit its own buildings, require a major commitment to local procurement of M/WBE and employee-owned businesses, which will provide them a springboard to establish themselves in the market.

     • Expedite permitting and pre-approvals, reduced permitting application fees, or prioritized Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing applications for retrofit projects contracting M/WBE firms.

     • Invest in training to help M/WBEs transition from construction to the retrofit industry.

     • Support the formation of worker-owned cooperatives through business accelerator services and cooperative conversion and development.

   • Expand workforce training in the green building industry and develop job placement programs for Black and minority workers.

     Read 3 Ideas

     • Drawing on Mondragon Corporation’s Ikerlan research institute, invest in a coordinated research and training institution between the City’s economic development and workforce development agencies as well as public and nonprofit institutions to shape training curriculum for the emerging retrofit market.

     • Develop a citywide training and employment program for underserved communities dedicated to weather-proofing public buildings, rooftop solar installation, building composting facilities, and wetland restoration.

     • Invest in community-based organizations that have led the fight for environmental justice in order to connect new green energy jobs and training programs with local residents. (See Community Engagement and Climate Strategy for more details.)

   • Drive new investments in manufacturing districts to support equitable economic development.

     Read 3 Ideas

     • Create a new program to adapt and retrofit Industrial Business Zones that have historically exacerbated heat island effect and poor air quality by investing to mitigate stormwater runoff, prioritizing freight and clean trucks, increasing tree canopy coverage, and providing grants for new clean energy technology.

     • Promote local production hubs and sustainable food distribution centers along the waterfront – such as Staten Island, Red Hook and Sunset Park, and the South Bronx – activating Freight NYC for sustainable rail and water transport.

     • Partner with community-based organizations to identify public sites to lead new community-owned renewable energy projects or equitable economic development initiatives tied to clean energy manufacturing. (See Climate Strategy for more details.)

   Case Study

   Basque Research and Technology Alliance – Ikerlan

3. 21.

   https://21visions.urbandesignforum.org/working-neighborhoods#21Share

   Partner with leading anchor institutions to build community wealth.

   • Challenge: Access to capital and contracts continue to create a challenging climate for the growth of minority-owned businesses; out of the city’s 2.2 million small businesses, only 2% are Black-owned.

   • Leverage leading anchor institutions to support local procurement and equitable economic development.

     Read 3 Ideas

     • Drawing on the City of Cleveland’s partnership with the Cleveland Foundation and leading anchor institutions, partner with the New York’s major purchasing powerhouses to lead in green job creation, workforce diversity, and local procurement with M/WBE and employee-owned businesses.

     • To recuperate revenue loss from non-profit tax exemption, explore voluntary payments or a charge for municipal user fees from the city’s largest anchor institutions to fund programs aimed at closing the racial wealth gap.

     • Using the City’s convening power, gather the top financial institutions to explore ways to lend to Black and brown small businesses and entrepreneurs, and worker cooperatives.

   • Encourage banking policies that invest in Black and brown small businesses and entrepreneurs, as well as worker cooperatives.

     Read 1 Ideas

     • Call for public banking policies at the City, State, and Federal level as a means of increasing access to capital for small BIPOC and immigrant-owned businesses that have historically been excluded and vulnerable to predatory creditors.

   Case Study

   Cleveland, Ohio – Evergreen Cooperatives

Advisors

These recommendations are authored by Urban Design Forum. We thank our advisors who provided helpful insights, suggestions, and guidance throughout the working group process.