Does your community have a lifeless block of vacant storefronts holding it back? Better Block might be able to help. The program helps a community come together and figure out the kind of change that will revitalize a neighborhood quickly.
Holly Moskerintz, community affairs representative for the National Association of REALTORS®, explains how Better Block helps precipitate change in a way that circumvents the common barriers to neighborhood development.
"Better Block is a demonstration tool that rebuilds and revitalizes an area using grassroots efforts to show the potential to create a great walkable, vibrant neighborhood – and even a destination... It’s a way to give residents a taste of what’s possible," Moskerintz writes on NAR's Spaces to Places blog. The "focus is to bring back a neighborhood rapidly rather than developing a larger scale, more financially complex project that could take years. It can help people come together to create a community destination quickly."
And the process doesn't have to cost much, either. Better Block Co-founder Jason Roberts tells Moskerintz the projects “never cost more than $3,000... and we can pull them off for as low as $500 if we have to.” At least one Better Block program has received an NAR Smart Growth grant to help cover costs.
Moskerintz shows Better Block in action in Memphis, Dallas, and Norfolk, Va. But you can also see a project first-hand in New Orleans during the REALTORS® Conference & Expo this November.
Source: "One Block at a Time," Spaces to Places (Oct. 8, 2014)
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