Our Approach
We recognize that strong local commerce lies at the heart of vibrant urban communities. For residents, neighborhood commerce provides key day-to-day amenities along with jobs and wealth creation opportunities. Local eateries, bars, boutiques, and professional service offices keep dollars circulating in the community and connect residents to one another, generating the glue that binds a neighborhood. Moreover, unique food and other cultural offerings establish the distinctive character of a community, build neighborhood pride, and compel visitors to come again and again.
Urban Juncture works with local partners and allies to reestablish community ecosystems of culture and enterprise while collaborating with like-minded stakeholders to identify, highlight, and advocate for the removal of the root causes of disinvestment. Our ecosystem work relies on five key actions:
1. Invest in local assets.
Every community has unique, valuable, and deeply-rooted assets, including its people, culture, places, and enterprises that must form the foundation of any revitalization effort if it is to be successful. We work to identify, engage, and activate these assets.
2. Support innovation, growth & replication.
Our communities have an abundance of talent and creativity but often lack access to the key resources required to move from concept to enterprise and from startup to profitability. We work to assemble and deliver resources to fill this gap while encouraging the innovation necessary to establish truly unique enterprises.
3. Build enterprise hubs in central locations.
Our work prioritizes key commercial corridors suffering from decades of blight and neglect to build a positive brand of neighborhood revitalization. Achieving a critical mass of activity at central community locations is important to establishing a sustainable presence in neighborhood.
4. Reengage & reconnect.
Historic disinvestment has resulted in local residents becoming disengaged and disconnected and has separated their neighborhoods from other urban communities and the vibrancy of the city as a whole. We work to rebuild social capital and to reengage and reconnect community at all levels.
5. Facilitate local control & ownership.
Local ownership and control are critical to assuring the successful establishment and regeneration of an ecosystem. Community residents are the most familiar with the needs and assets of their neighborhoods and have a deeply vested interest in reinvesting in them for the long term.