By Sasha Forbes and Nick Collins At SPARCC’s inception, we knew policy—local, regional, and national—would be a critical component for long-term systems change. But that was met with the hard reality of the 2016 election, which put many policy advocates on the defense. Where we had high hopes for an administration to work with us […]

As part of our efforts to make federal funding more accessible, we created an illustrated video walking through: Watch the video below!

Lee este blog en español. Federal Grant Funding Checklist Applying for funding from the federal government is a difficult and onerous task. While the funds are ultimately meant to help a community address local needs, the process of accessing the funds and ensuring they are implemented in a manner consistent with community priorities can be […]

Recovery from the Great Recession was uneven and painfully slow for lower-income areas and people of color burdened by decades of structural racism. Some neighborhoods never regained housing values or homeownership levels. One thing we know: when parts of our communities are not healthy and thriving, we all pay a price. The multiple stressors of […]

The “Second City” has always been a place of change and renewal. Chicago, a city that was devastated by the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, has proved its resiliency time and time again by continuing to reinvent itself.  Chicago is home to 77 community areas including Bronzeville and La Villita (Little Village), Chinatown and Uptown, […]

By Nick Collins Climate-related disasters displaced over 1.7 million Americans in 2020 alone. This figure doesn’t include the increasing displacement caused by secondary effects of climate change—the decrease in affordability, the rising cost of energy, and the loss of land via erosion. Without significant investments to increase the supply of affordable housing, federal efforts to […]

Through an unprecedented process involving deep community engagement and cross-sector collaboration, the City of Chicago recently prepared its first Equitable Transit-Oriented Development Policy Plan. There are many lessons and insights applicable to other cities and regions. This webinar will delve into what it took to create the plan, recognizing that a lot of the work […]

by Mariia Zimmerman, MZ Strategies It’s estimated that there are as many as two billion parking spots in the United States, while there are 200 million cars on the road. Cars cruising for on-street parking in U.S. cities contribute significantly to congestion and pollution, and parking covers huge amounts of urban land area. “Free” parking […]

Chicago is many things—a global city, a city of neighborhoods, a “City on the Make”—and also one of America’s most segregated cities. While the region creates 200,000 jobs a year, the unemployment rate among black Chicagoans is more than three times higher than that of white residents and one-and-a-half times higher for Latinos. Life expectancy […]

By: Mariia Zimmerman Workers, students, care givers, and older adults are among the many different types of community members who struggle to find safe, reliable, and affordable mobility options. Increased investment over the past two decades in public transit is helping to connect more people to economic opportunity. Transit helps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and […]