Vital Neighborhoods Initiative

The Office of Housing and Community Development (OHCD) and NeighborhoodsNow have selected the Alliance to continue the Vital Neighborhoods Initiative begun by NeighborhoodsNow with support from OHCD. The concept of the Vital Neighborhoods Initiative and the Alliance’s selection as the new manager of the program was announced at a special event with Mayor Michael Nutter in March 2010.

The Vital Neighborhoods Initiative is modeled after the very successful Healthy Neighborhoods Program in Baltimore, MD. The objective of the program is to strengthen “middle market neighborhoods” — neighborhoods that are relatively stable, but could benefit from marketing and improvement projects to encourage housing sales and investment. After working with nine community organizations in a pilot phase, NeighborhoodsNow selected three neighborhood organizations to work with on the first phase of implementation: New Kensington CDC, Fairmount CDC and Mt. Airy Revitalization Corp. Each group is developing a neighborhood marketing program and website and undertaking a series of projects to improve the character and appearance of their neighborhood.

Click here to download the NeighborhoodsNow report Protecting Philadelphia’s Backbone: A Strategy for Vital Neighborhoods, by Paul Brophy and Thomas Burns (1.4 MB).

Click here to learn more about the Vital Neighborhoods program in Fairmount, East Mt. Airy and Fishtown. (10.9 MB).

In 2010 the Preservation Alliance expects to continue to work with the three neighborhoods currently in the program and to create an expansion strategy that will lead to the selection of additional neighborhoods by early 2011. The Alliance is working in partnership with the Center for Architecture and the Community Design Collaborative to develop future phases of the Vital Neighborhoods Initiative.

The Alliance is grateful to the board of directors of NeighborhoodsNow for establishing this program and to its former executive director, Beverly Coleman, for her leadership in bringing the Healthy Neighborhoods concept to Philadelphia. For further information about Vital Neighborhoods Initiative contact John@preservationalliance.com.