The Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) and the Alliance for Metropolitan Stability (the Alliance) are excited to announce the recipients of the Housing Stability Grants. The grants will enhance the capacity of community-based organizations working with BIPOC communities, people with disabilities, and low-wealth communities to build power and advance systems and policy changes to gain access to safe, healthy, affordable, and reliable housing. 

Housing Stability Grants recipients

Lead Organization: Community Stabilization Project
Partner Organization(s): Neighborhood…

CURA is pleased to announce the recipients of this year′s Faculty Interactive Research Program grants: 

• Ryan Allen (Urban and Regional Planning, Humphrey School of Public Affairs) The USDA Section 515 Program and the Challenge of Preserving Affordable Housing in Greater Minnesota
• Lizbeth H. Finestack (Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences, College of Liberal Arts) Identifying Language Impairment in Students with Diverse Home Languages
• Lindsey Weiler (Family Social Science, College of Education and Human Development) …

Too many people in the Twin Cities region do not have access to safe, healthy, affordable, and reliable housing. In particular, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) communities, people with disabilities, and low-wealth communities face barriers to this critical resources. Market conditions have shown that the housing market does not work for most low-income people, so solutions may require questioning long held assumptions, creating innovative solutions, and attempting new ideas to address housing stability.

To address these challenges and identify solutions, the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) and the …

The Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) invites proposals for our Faculty Interactive Research Program (FIRP). University of Minnesota faculty are critical resources in exploring issues and concerns important to Minnesota, such as the criminal justice system, demography, state or local economic development, education, employment, energy, the environment, health, housing, state and local government, welfare and poverty, human and social services, transportation, or land use and development.

The FIRP encourages University faculty to carry out research projects that answer questions about these important regional issues, in partnership with community groups…

It’s no coincidence that both the Shoreland Management Act and the Center of Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) are celebrating their 50th anniversaries this year. Minnesota’s shoreland management program was one of the first major statewide initiatives to come out of CURA. This milestone year offers a unique opportunity to look back on the history and purpose behind the shoreland program, its beginnings with CURA, trends in shoreland development, and what we can do to improve shoreland…

It is with great sadness that we report that Esther Wattenberg passed away on July 19, just shy of her 100th birthday.

A professor of social work at the University of Minnesota, she was a fierce advocate for underserved women and children. Esther was a critical part of CURA's work for several decades and a treasured part of the CURA family. May her memory be an inspiration.

• Minnesota child welfare pioneer Esther Wattenberg dies at age 99 from the Star Tribune
• …

CURA researchers and research projects were well represented at the recent Urban Affairs Association (UAA) conference in Los Angeles, April 24-27, 2019. In addition to the sessions below, Dr. Brittany Lewis was asked to participate on an activist scholarship panel by Professor Lisa Bates from Portland State University.

Sessions presented by CURA researchers:

• Gentrification and concentrated poverty by Professor Edward G Goetz, Anthony Damiano, Dr. Brittany Lewis, and Molly Calhoun
• Typologies of Fear in the…

The year 2018 marks the 50th anniversary of the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs. We are proud of our work this past half-century and of the work we continue to do today. The next issue of the CURA Reporter will be a specially themed issue focusing on this 50th anniversary. There is, of course, a much more important and better-known 50th anniversary this year—the anniversary of the Fair Housing Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in April of 1968. 

The act is deservedly regarded as one of the signature legislative achievements of the Civil Rights Movement…

UMN Community Fund Drive

For the 2018 University of Minnesota Community Fund Drive, the University collectively raised $1.35 million for local charities. CURA did several fundraisers over the course of the drive and raised just under $3,000 through those sales and individual donations by staff with 85% participation.

Neighborhoods Now!

The Neighborhoods Now! Fall 2018 session wrapped up in early December. Each participant attended four extensive day-long classes designed to…

The local impact of urban farming, breaking down the boundaries between communities and academia, and #CURAStudents are the topics for today’s #CURAisUrbanAg installment. We’d like to introduce you to Rachel Grewell: she is a graduate student working with CURA and the Urban Farm and Garden Alliance (a great local urban agriculture group profiled…

Stephen Peyton is a Graduate Research Assistant working primarily on Community GIS for the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs. Stephen’s perspective on making maps user-friendly and accessible really embodies the mission of CURA and our work with community partners. Below is a Q&A with Stephen and details on the powerful airplane noise map application he built in partnership with the MSP FairSkies Coalition. Also, we have a…

The Atlantic’s CityLab posted an article on a map detailing declining home ownership rates in urban areas developed by the journalist and web developer Ken Schwencke.

Sarah Hernandez with the McKnight Foundation suggested that a closer look be taken at renters in the Twin Cities. Here are some of the maps made in…