What If Disinvested Communities Had Real Power to Allocate Federal Budget Aid for Local Governments?
Starting from Ferry Circle, on Buffalo’s West Side, take a walk southwest down Massachusetts Avenue and you’ll notice the community gardens, rain gardens, Growing Green Urban Farm, a park that was once a broken-down, unkempt, and dangerous eyesore, and shimmering solar panel arrays here and there. Each bright spot has at least one story behind it of someone who lives in that neighborhood who helped build it.

You’re in Buffalo’s Green Development Zone. It’s a far cry today from the vacant or abandoned properties that pockmarked the 25-block area more than 15 years ago. That’s when PUSH Buffalo started buying up the first of more than a hundred vacant lots in the neighborhood, including many that were caught up in the financial crisis of 2008-2009 (PUSH stands for People United for Sustainable Housing).

Over the past 15-plus years, PUSH Buffalo estimates it has brought in more than $60 million of investment to those hundred-plus lots, most of which became permanent low-income housing. The organization is now developing new low-income housing in the area, as well as a new community facility to house a workforce training program focused on green jobs.


https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/wha...yXPG0rLemhOAG0


Isn't this what sort of happens now? The people on the council decide how money is spent?