During the 80s and early 90s, Shelterforce began to examine a wider range of community-building issues. But always with a view of empowering individuals and groups to take control of their communities so that they can effect real change. Right now we are in the middle of the most profound change in federal policy towards inner cities and low-income people since the 1960s. Affordable, safe, decent housing is an integral and inseparable component of community development. Physical redevelopment must be accompanied by efforts to repair the social fabric of distressed communities.
Community development requires community organizing, civic participation, and political engagement.
Successful community revitalization requires both bottom-up participation at the local level and a national agenda that recognizes the need for urban redevelopment and provides support for revitalization efforts and grassroots organizations. That interview was used by Rock Island, Illinois, tenant activist Vince Thomas in discussions with his city s mayor. The article was later reprinted in US Mayor. A Primary Source Of Community-building Information Shelterforce articles play a pivotal role in graduate and undergraduate courses in housing, urban planning and policy, sociology, law and other programs in schools across the country. Reprints of Shelterforce articles have appeared in the Pacific Mountain Network News, The Organizer Mailing, Global Tenant, EcoCity Cleveland, US Mayor, and the National Housing Conference Report.