Flatbush Caton Market

Development without displacement! It’s the clarion call of underserved communities struggling to coalesce a desire for high quality goods and services with the inevitable gaze of the upwardly mobile urbanite those goods/services will attract. Can the redevelopment of Flatbush Caton Market provide authentic community development while creating a vibrant, sustainable marketplace in an increasingly gentrifying Flatbush?

Bodega Bootcamp™

Whether the goal is to combat obesity, create safer communities, or stimulate the local small business sector, the ubiquitous corner grocery market plays a key role in the growth and stability of communities across the country. Urbane’s Bodega Bootcamp™ offers communities, advocates, and funders a chance to “be a grocer for a day” and experience the power of the Grocer as Change Agent model…

NYC DCA/OFE

For low-income residents, who either lack a traditional credit history or suffer from bad credit, the inability to demonstrate credit-worthiness can serve as crippling barrier to financial freedom and upward mobility. In light of this credit crisis, the OFE partnered with Urbane Development to identify “alternative” credit as a means for underserved communities to access more traditional financial services.

Kamehameha Schools

Food manufacturing is a rapidly growing industry throughout the state of Hawai’i. The awareness of the economic impact that local food manufacturing can have on communities grows has sparked interest shared manufacturing facilities. Urbane Development partnered with Econsult Solutions and Kamehameha Schools to assess the feasibility of a shared food manufacturing facility in urban Honolulu.

Green Grocer Project

In a city working hard to reinvent itself, providing the most basic of needs – food – can become a larger experiment on how to create attractive, vibrant communities. See how Urbane Development helped Detroit engage the city’s supermarkets to strengthen their ability to provide healthy and affordable food to Detroit residents while creating a template for more efficient service delivery for a key city agency…

Detroit Food System Study

While new tales of Detroit’s death and rebirth are ubiquitous, Detroiters have been working to create their own vision for their city. Detroit’s food system, from agricultural production to value-added processing, has been a key catalyst in the city’s homegrown renaissance. See how the Detroit Food + Fitness Collaborative, Urbane Development, and a host of community partners have used economic analytics and creative storytelling to show the power and potential of a localized food system on the well-being of the city and its residents.

Hip Hop Museum

Hip Hop culture has defined a generation of New York residents, and occupies a crucial space in the art, culture, economy, and livelihood of New Yorkers and their city. Building the definitive institution to chronicle its history and steward its ongoing evolution is a monumental task, one Urbane and the National Museum of Hip Hop have begun in the culture’s birthplace – The South Bronx.

W.K. Kellogg Foundation

The WK Kellogg Food and Fitness Shared Learning Lab occurred over a three-day period from July 29 – 31, 2015. Workshops held during the convening were centered on issues of community ownership, workforce development, and policy, all of which were discussed through the lens of racial inequality.

Two Bridges NeighborFood

Two Bridges, an often overlooked neighborhood of the Lower East Side, has more cultural and culinary resources than many New Yorkers realize. Urbane Development and the Two Bridges Neighborhood Council have partnered in developing a comprehensive, multi-year local economy initiative that utilizes the existing assets of this diverse community to increase wealth and enhance quality of life for Two Bridges residents and institutions.

HOPE Collaborative

Despite Oakland’s rich history in political activism and community engagement, countless families struggle for access to healthy, affordable food remains a barrier. In a place where retailers are reluctant to sell healthy options, there is an opportunity to reframe food inequality in East and West Oakland. Urbane is working with HOPE Collaborative to launch the Healthy Corner Store Project that supports the expansion and improvement of small grocers in an effort to improve product offerings and business operations in small grocers in Oakland.

Lantern Ventures

Second chances are all about the baby steps. For the staff of Little Things Candy Store and Market, respectively, success is measured not simply by profit, but through finding serenity and purpose in the little things. Find out how The Lantern Organization, a supportive services housing developer and Urbane Development reinvent the concept of Retail Therapy…

Small Grocer Project

The concept of economic gardening is apropos to Cory Booker, a Mayor who cares as much about his city’s physical health as he does its economic. Can improving small corner stores be an economic development strategy? Newark’s economic development arm, Brick City Development Corporation, enlisted Urbane Development to help answer that question through the marriage of small business improvement and fresh food access…

Neighborhood Financial Health

An increasing body of literature points towards the impact of neighborhood level services – or lack thereof – on the social and financial mobility of its residents. Building on this momentum, the Office of Financial Empowerment created the Collaborative for Neighborhood Financial Health, a collective of financial empowerment and economic development practitioners, to create a framework and strategy for defining and measurably improving neighborhood-level financial health.

Detroit City of Design

The Detroit Creative Corridor Center (DC3) has been working to create a unified vision for Detroit’s creative economy that can support businesses and strengthen the community. In early 2017, DC3 contracted Urbane Development (UD) to lead the efforts to design an inclusive economic development plan for the city’s creative industries.

Projects Overview