Where The Community Owns The Real Estate

Neighborhoods across the United States are taking control of their own real estate, developing a collective ownership model that aims to benefit the community rather than generate profits for private developers. 

In this episode of the Next City podcast, Executive Director Lucas Grindley talks with Senior Economic Justice Correspondent Oscar Perry Abello about his reporting on the movement for community-controlled real estate. We also meet Adriana Abizadeh, executive director of the Kensington Corridor Trust, which is redeveloping three blocks in a Philadelphia neighborhood that is historically disinvested and faces systemic challenges.

“Gentrification is already in Kensington, there's no denying that and there's no rewinding that,” says Abizadeh, who sees the trust as the community’s way of protecting its future. Abizadeh first shared about her work in a Next City webinar, “Building a Community-Controlled Real Estate Entity from Scratch.”

To learn more about community-controlled real estate and how it's benefiting historically disinvested neighborhoods, listen to this episode below or subscribe to Next City’s podcast on Apple, Spotify or Goodpods.

And if you want to learn more about the many ways community-owned real estate is being used to preserve culture and take back power, we've assembled some of Abello's best reporting into Next City’s newest ebook, “The Bottom Line: When Communities Own Spaces for Business.”