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 …

Come learn from local leaders and national experts about Tenant Opportunity to Purchase (TOPA) at the next CURA Housing Forum. TOPA allows residents of a building a fair chance to purchase their buildings when the owner decides to sell, giving tenants a say in the future of their housing. 

We will hear of successful examples of implementing this policy in Washington, D.C., as well as local efforts to create a similar policy for Minneapolis.

Speakers

Dominic T. Moulden is a longtime resource organizer at Organizing Neighborhood Equity (ONE DC…

In May of 2019, the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) held a multimedia release event for “The Illusion of Choice: Evictions and Profit in North Minneapolis” research project that included a presentation, a video telling the stories of tenants and landlords in North Minneapolis, an art installation with photos that explore the phases of eviction, and an illustrative simulation developed with the Juxta Art Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) team called the “Social Service Runaround.” Evictions are a social crisis in North Minneapolis caused by decades of…

Single Black mothers face the highest risk of evictions in the United States. In Hennepin County, close to 50% of all eviction filings take place in two zip codes in North Minneapolis, despite the fact that they contain just 8% of all rental units in the city. Driven by community feedback, The Illusion of Choice: Evictions & Profit in North Minneapolis project aims to answer the question of why and how evictions are taking place from the perspectives of tenants and landlords themselves. CURA believes this is central to the successful development of public policy solutions and new programmatic interventions for those tenants negatively affected by evictions, as well as…

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…

Please join the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) for the first Thomas Scott Seminar.

The Urban Displacement Project: Urban Data Science for Policy Change 
presented by Karen Chapple, Ph.D.

About the seminar

The overheating of the housing market, as well as the planning of new infrastructure systems, has led to new interest in understanding neighborhood change, specifically in the form of gentrification and displacement. Researchers have devised online “neighborhood early warning systems,” interactive maps that describe change processes and even predict future transformation. In 2015, we launched 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…

In January of 2019, the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) released its study of gentrification in Minneapolis and St. Paul between 2000 and 2015. “The Diversity of Gentrification: Multiple Forms of Gentrification in Minneapolis and St. Paul” used a mixed methods approach that combined a statistical analysis of neighborhood-level data with an in-depth qualitative analysis of interviews with public officials, community leaders, and neighborhood residents. The study found significant evidence of gentrification in the two cities.

…

Lower income households have always faced the threat of involuntary displacement, but that threat is becoming more acute in the Twin Cities Metro area as the perfect storm of low vacancy rates, escalating rents and upscaling of naturally occurring affordable apartments drives families from their homes. What can local governments do to protect people? The Housing Justice Center will talk about a report it just issued discussing six areas where local policies and strategies can help preserve the affordability of at-risk housing, can keep low income residents in their homes, or at least protect…

Edward G. Goetz, Director of CURA and Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Minnesota

How can we use housing policy to achieve greater racial and regional equity in American cities? Professor Ed Goetz discusses his new book, "The One-Way Street of Integration" and contrasts two housing policy approaches, integration initiatives and community development, and their prospects for achieving racial justice. He maintains that fair housing advocates have adopted a spatial strategy of advocacy that has increasingly brought fair housing concerns into conflict with community development efforts. Goetz argues that integration efforts focus on the spatial…