U.S. Gallup polls indicate that individuals living in rural and small-town communities have a hostile view towards immigrants in the United States. In 2019 People’s Action launched a campaign in Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania with the goal of “building a bigger we”, or community development that includes immigrants and refugees. Through the utilization of deep canvassing, People’s Action hoped to reshape voters’ worldview and aid them in realizing that immigrants and people of color are not the drivers of scarcity and minimal job opportunities, but are equally impacted by the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. The results of this campaign show that deep canvassing was effective in persuading voters of all backgrounds to become more supportive to immigrants.

Organizers in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and North Carolina conducted interviews with over 900 Latinx immigrants (including nearly 400 undocumented community members) about the important issues facing immigrant communities during the COVID-19 pandemic. This infographic features snippets of the stories shared; common themes include financial hardship and illness, compounded by a lack of government support.

Science and technology policy fellowships train scientists and engineers to use their expertise to advise government officials in technical matters to inform policymaking. Across the US, differences in legislative structures between states (e.g. legislative size, session duration, state resources) require state-specific fellowship design. This report describes two case studies of emerging fellowships in North Carolina and Virginia and uses these examples as a model to suggest how other states might implement similar policy fellowships. This report highlights the government structures in each of these states, focusing on how each unique type of legislature informs the most promising options for host locations, funding sources, and duties for fellows in each state. For coalitions to establish successful state science policy fellowships, the report recommends understanding the particular structure and needs of state governments, communicating with key stakeholders, and identifying additional opportunities for fellows to engage outside of the state government.

Citywide development that uses traditional business practices, which have historically benefitted from and perpetuated racialized inequality, can threaten to displace the most disadvantaged communities. This report provides tools and resources for groups that are advocating for more equitable, progressive development in their cities; these practices address the housing affordability crisis, displacement of long-term residents, low and stagnant wages, unemployment, persecution of immigrants, over-policing of communities of color, and a host of other issues affecting a city’s residents. Additionally, this report includes a checklist and guidelines for establishing and moving a successful coalition.

As construction activity in the southern United States continues to flourish, concern over workers’ health and safety grows. Economic hardships, few or no opportunities for career advancement, unstable work, injuries, and even death on the job are commonplace for construction workers in the South. This report examines the working conditions of 1,435 construction workers in six major cities in the southern U.S, in order to document the most critical issues facing construction workers in major construction markets and provide information to guide possible solutions.

Despite providing a valuable and necessary service to society, domestic workers are not given the pay, protections, or respect that they deserve. For reasons that can be traced back to the slave-era, a large proportion of the domestic work industry is made up of Black women, which leads them to face the brunt of this exploitation. By telling the stories of Black female domestic workers from Georgia and North Carolina, this report outlines the maltreatment they face and how they rally to fight for better working conditions through the “We Dream in Black” organization.

This report documents real estate development patterns along three recently constructed light rail transit lines in the United States: the Hiawatha Line in Minnesota, the Southeast Corridor in Colorado, and the Blue Line in North Carolina. Specifically, this report aims to give regions with planned or new light rail corridors a better sense of what to expect in terms of new development (based on actual experiences in regions with new transit lines), offer insight about the factors influencing development patterns near transit (as well as how the public sector can assist in realizing the market potential for transit-oriented development), and test analytical methods that are used by planners to identify areas that are more likely to redevelop or that are seen as better locations for transit-oriented development.

This report is a follow-up to a previous study by the Center for Transit-Oriented Development (CTOD), Rails to Real Estate: Development Patterns Along Three Recently Constructed Rail Lines. It revisits the three regions explored in Rails to Real Estate to take a closer look at where development did and did not occur in terms of eight development contexts that are commonly found around transit stations. In addition, it provides a more detailed look at the opportunities and challenges involved in fostering transit-oriented development in different types of neighborhoods, and discusses strategies that may be appropriate for catalyzing transportation-oriented development (TOD) depending on the development context.

Due to monopoly control of broadband technology, millions of Americans do not have internet access because it is not available or affordable. To circumvent this problem, the city of Wilson began building a citywide Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) network called Greenlight in 2008, after half a decade of negotiations with Time Warner Cable over price hikes, slow service, and poor reliability. This report outlines the development and growth of Greenlight and discusses its positive effects on local communities and businesses. Ultimately, this case study demonstrates how communities can thrive from local investment and a focus on building community rather than charging the maximum that can be extracted from families.

This ordinance mandates certain percentage of set-asides for affordable units for each covered development type, requires that affordable units be located within the development subject to this ordinance, and offers density bonuses for developments that meet certain percentages of affordable units.