Reclaiming Your Community: You Don't Have to Move out of Your Neighborhood to Live in a Better One

"How can we make the promise of America more accessible and equitable for everyone? What is a path toward wealth creation, quality of life, and happiness in low-status communities, whether in the inner city, in Rust Belt towns, Native American reservations, or other "marginalized" places? There is an alternative to programs that simply ameliorate poverty without building wealth or counteracting the effects of displacement and cultural erasure through gentrification. What Majora Carter proposes in this inspiring and eye-opening book is a talent retention community development strategy. Low-status communities have never had a shortage of successful people emerging from them. What they have had is a shortage of successful people staying. Carter focuses on retaining homegrown talent to create a robust, economically diverse ecosystem. She advocates helping property owners resist selling to speculators assembling available resources to build local businesses creating vibrant third spaces where personal and professional connections can grow and much more Throughout the book, Carter shares key lessons from her personal and professional journey. The result is a powerful, heartfelt rethinking of poverty, inequality, economic development, and individual and familysuccess".
Majora Carter shows how brain drain cripples low-status communities and maps out a development strategy focused on talent retention to help them break out of economic stagnation.  "My musical, In the Heights, explores issues of community, gentrification, identity and home, and the question: Are happy endings only ones that involve getting out of your neighborhood to achieve your dreams? In her refreshing new book, Majora Carter writes about these issues with great insight and clarity, asking us to re-examine our notions of what community development is and how we invest in the futures of our hometowns. This is an exciting conversation worth joining.” Lin-Manuel MirandaHow can we solve the problem of persistent poverty in low-status communities? Majora Carter argues that these areas need a talent-retention strategy, just like the ones companies have. Retaining homegrown talent is a critical part of creating a strong local economy that can resist gentrification. But too many people born in low-status communities measure their success by how far away from them they can get.  Carter, who could have been one of them, returned to the South Bronx and devised a development strategy rooted in the conviction that these communities have the resources within themselves to succeed. She advocates measures such asBuilding mixed-income instead of exclusively low-income housing to create a diverse and robust economic ecosystemShowing homeowners how to maximize the long-term value of their property so they won’t succumb to quick-cash offers from speculatorsKeeping people and dollars in the community by developing vibrant “third spaces” restaurants, bookstores, and places like Carter’s own Boogie Down Grind Cafe  This is a profoundly personal book. Carter writes about her brother’s murder, how turning a local dumping ground into an award-winning park opened her eyes to the hidden potential in her community, her struggles as a woman of color confronting the “male and pale” real estate and nonprofit establishments, and much more. It is a powerful rethinking of poverty, economic development, and the meaning of success.