Neighborhoods in Bloom
The City of Richmond, Virginia’s Neighborhoods in Bloom (NiB) initiative invested federal grant funding in seven target neighborhoods from 1999 to 2004. The majority of the city’s federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and HOME Investment Partnerships Program (HOME) funding, as well as, significant amounts of capital improvement funds and other resources were spent in the strategically selected target neighborhoods. Through NiB, the city planned to concentrate public resources in these neighborhoods until they achieved the critical mass of public investment needed to stimulate self-sustaining, private-market activity.
NiB Neighborhood Profiles (2017)
The profile for each of the original NiB neighborhoods provides a brief neighborhood history, overviews changes in neighborhood demographics and housing conditions (1970-2010), quantifies investment made in the neighborhood since the end of the original NiB program (FY2006-FY2014) and highlights ongoing redevelopment efforts. Profiles may be downloaded individually or in one aggregate file.
- Introduction and Key Findings
- Blackwell
- Carver/Newtowne West
- Church Hill Central
- Highland Park – Southern Tip
- Jackson Ward
- Oregon Hill
- Southern Barton Heights
- All Neighborhood Profiles
“Housing Externalities: Evidence from Spatially Concentrated Urban Revitalization Programs” (2008)
Richmond Fed senior economists Pierre-Daniel G. Sarte and Raymond E. Owens, together with Esteban Rossi-Hansberg of Princeton University, revisit the Neighborhoods in Bloom initiative for insight into the economic effects of community revitalization. Using the natural experiment created by NiB, the authors measure how the choices of one property owner can increase or decrease the value of neighboring properties.
“The Impacts of Targeted Public and Nonprofit Investment on Neighborhood Development” (2005)
The Neighborhoods in Bloom report commissioned by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond assesses the impact of targeted financial investment in several Richmond neighborhoods over a five year period. The lessons learned from this reinvestment strategy help explain the impact of targeted community development efforts in disinvested neighborhoods.
