News: NYU Marron announces new effort led by tim tompkins: the Sustaining Places initiative
Oct. 3, 2023
NYU Marron announced in October 2023 that Tim Tompkins will be joining them to lead the Sustaining Places Initiative.
Neighborhood-based nonprofit organizations, working in partnership with government and the private sector, have been central to urban recovery, neighborhood-level economic development, and more responsive local governance. As cities confront a new period of economic, social, and environmental strain, there is an urgent need to strengthen these collaborative models by rethinking and testing new approaches that make them more durable, inclusive, and effective.
Emerging in response to the fiscal and social crises of the 1970s and 1980s, a wide range of place-focused partnerships helped reverse patterns of urban decline. Business improvement districts, parks conservancies, placemaking and placekeeping organizations, community gardens, and public markets contributed to revitalizing the public realm, restoring neighborhood vitality, and rebuilding civic infrastructure. While sharing certain qualities with community development corporations and settlement houses, many of these groups concentrated primarily on the stewardship and programming of public space. More recently, their scope has expanded to include the co-management and activation of streets, sidewalks, and plazas, often in collaboration with transportation advocates and municipal agencies.
At their most effective, these models have elevated local leadership and aligned fragmented public services at the neighborhood scale, while also attracting and leveraging private investment. Yet important structural weaknesses remain. Few municipalities have established coherent, citywide strategies to support and scale neighborhood-based nonprofit engagement across multiple agencies. Regulatory and management frameworks for diverse public spaces, particularly newer forms such as pedestrian plazas, are often inconsistent or unclear. From an equity perspective, many of these organizations are absent from the most economically distressed areas, and those operating in under-resourced communities frequently face chronic financial instability. Moreover, where neighborhood partnerships succeed in stimulating investment, there are limited mechanisms to mitigate displacement or to capture and reinvest value in community-driven, non-market solutions.
This initiative seeks to identify and advance new models and tools, including financial and governance mechanisms, that enable hyperlocal partnerships to generate vibrancy across a wider range of neighborhoods. It does so through convening and collaborating with practitioners from the nonprofit, public, and private sectors to surface and test innovative approaches.
Drawing on global case studies and original policy development, the initiative will articulate practical recommendations, including:
Streamlining bureaucratic processes and reducing administrative burdens that impede local action
Strengthening municipal capacity to support place-based partnerships from within government
Piloting new approaches that improve district-level responsiveness and empower neighborhood nonprofits
Clarifying and modernizing public space regulation and enforcement
Reforming and simplifying contractual relationships between cities and place-based organizations
Expanding citywide public-private hybrid entities that can provide re-grants, technical assistance, and capacity building support to smaller neighborhood groups
Developing new templates for long-term financing, governance, and equitable value distribution