Publications

Norman, Oklahoma is home to just under 125,000 residents, as well as the state’s largest university. While the city is full of the usual campus activity, it also includes a wide range of household incomes. COVID-19 increased the number of families with diminished income. Many of these families became eligible for existing social support services, but weren’t aware of available resources. With connection to services, children and families could have additional access to healthy food (via WIC and SNAP programs) and resources to provide transportation and information about reducing neurotoxic exposures at home.

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Salt Lake City is tackling issues of fresh and healthy food availability via the Resident Food Equity Advisors. Its goal is to help create an equitable community food system that increases access to healthy, organic, and culturally relevant foods for historically underrepresented and underserved communities. Over the course of a year, the Advisors worked in partnership with City staff to voice their concerns and help shape the City’s food policy agenda.

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What can municipal governments (counties, cities and towns), still suffering from all the pain and disruption that COVID has brought to their communities and economies, do now to hasten their recovery and build resilience for the future, while also addressing past inequity? Here are seven essential steps to take, all proven, with real-world examples and implementation examples for each, that complement each other and can be done simultaneously.

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This brief is part of a series of publications MIP has released that was originally researched and compiled as a technical assistance memo to a participating member city. This memo was written in 2020 in response to a specific research question submitted by that member city. To make this publicly available, we’ve removed references to the original request and any location-specific recommendations.

For context, the original research question that prompted this memo was: How can the City increase curbside recycling compliance and decrease contamination, discourage illegal dumping, and find solutions for recycling glass?

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The U.S. is among the most unequal societies in the world. To address these inequalities, city leaders, including mayors, should play a critical role in community wealth building. This brief profiles three cities, Nashville, Detroit, and Lafayette, LA, on the unique ways that leaders in these cities are building community wealth and their local democratic systems. City leaders, including mayors, are this brief’s intended audience. However, as highlighted in each example, this work requires multiple actors, including community organizers and developers. This brief is useful to anyone committed to equitable economic development in their community.

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