Building the capacity of neighborhoods, suburban and rural communities, and community-based organizations to confront the problems and issues they face is central to much of CURA's work. Recent CURA projects in this area have included community needs assessments and program evaluations, assessing the role of place-based community development corporations, improving access to healthy food, involving youth and immigrants in community building, evaluating the role of the arts in promoting community, and community organizing to address resident concerns.

CURA serves as the Minneapolis lead in the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership, a collaborative effort by the Urban Institute and local partners to further development and use of neighborhood-level information systems in local policy making and community building.

CURA programs that support projects in the area of communities and neighborhoods include:

• Community Assistantship Program (CAP)
• Community GIS
• CURA Dissertation Research Grant
• Faculty Interactive Research Program (FIRP)
• Kris Nelson Community-Based Research Program (Nelson Program)
• Minnesota Center for Neighborhood Organizing (MCNO)
• Neighborhood Parnership Initiative (NPI)
• Resilient Communities Project (RCP)

CURA Contacts: Jay Clark, Jeff Corn, and Neeraj Mehta