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How Community Solar Turned a Superfund Site Into Savings in Illinois A new 9.1-MW solar array will help residents of Waukegan, Illinois, reduce energy bills. State incentives for low-income solar made the brownfield redevelopment project possible.

Love this visual of public transit in action in the Chicago region. This sort of thing redeems social media for a day.

Check out this awesome CTA visualization that a Chicago transit fan made! Huge shoutout to /user/mtdfan on Reddit for this amazing work ❤️

We love to share examples of innovation in community revitalization like this pilot project to anchor downtown revitalization with small scale manufacturing. That is defined as a business with less than 50 employees that creates a tangible product that can be replicated or packaged. Read more at Smart Cities Dive.

https://zurl.co/TMzIl

Can the maker economy drive local economic revitalization? 6 Michigan communities are about to find out. Leaders from six Southeastern Michigan communities will receive training on revitalizing downtowns by supporting small-scale manufacturing.

The Kankakee Regional Land Bank Authority (www.krlba.org) has been acquiring distressed homes and putting them back on the market in Kankakee, IL. The city has a home ownership rate of 51%, which is below the statewide average, and 75% of the housing stock was built prior to 1970. Most of the homes acquired by the land bank require moderate to substantial rehab, which makes them challenging for homebuyers to purchase directly.

HUD offers a purchase-rehab loan product called a 203k loan, which could be a solution for bridging some of the challenges facing Kankakee. The loan allows a borrower to finance the purchase and rehab cost of a home in one loan. The loan is underwritten based on anticipated post-rehab values. The interest rate is competitive for an FHA-insured product and the 203k is really the only loan program of its kind. Unfortunately, it is not a widely used loan program in Kankakee or anywhere, frankly.

In researching how KRLBA might use the 203k, we find that there are two major impediments. One, lenders are not familiar with it and don't write the loans very often. There is a learning curve on the underwriting side. More significantly, there are no 203K-certified consultants in Kankakee County. HUD requires a borrower using a 203k work with a 3rd party consultant to ensure the rehab is completed properly and to protect the homebuyer from unscrupulous builders. If there is no consultant, there can't be any loan.

Nationally, these two challenges are major obstacles to what could otherwise be an attractive program for banks and other development organizations, according to a report from the Consumer Federation of America. We've linked the report here: https://zurl.co/7aZQk . One solution for land banks like KRLBA is to retain staff that are or can become 203k certified. Not only would this help expand the market for these products, but it would provide a revenue stream for land banks and other organizations that end up managing the rehab projects for their buyers.

Expanding financing options for homebuyers is critical to allow more homebuyers to restore older, distressed homes. Without the ability to buy and rehab one of these homes, most of them will end up as investor-owned rentals.

Consumer Federation of America CFA is an association of over 250 nonprofit consumer organizations that was established in 1968

Newly built Hilliard home listed for thousands less than average price For the first time, the Central Ohio Community Land Trust built a home in a Columbus suburb. The Hilliard ranch is listed far below average sales prices. See why.

What to do with an unused school building? That's a question confronting communities across the US. In the Pittsburgh area, school districts are working to reuse or dispose of old buildings and they share their experiences in this article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, courtesy of Press-Reader. (You might to sign up for a free account to read...)https://zurl.co/aY89j

https://zurl.co/bo5kq

Colorado bills take ‘big swing’ at state’s housing shortage As the state pushes to ramp up development, a lawsuit from several municipalities accuses it of overstepping its authority.

This is something we encourage all of our municipal and county clients to explore: bring modular manufacturing into your city. It can create jobs, increase the housing supply, and help shore up local manufacturing. Great to see Philly putting out an RFI to develop the means to do just that. Love it!

The City of Philadelphia is issuing this Request for Information (RFI) to solicit information to advise the development of modular housing factories within Philadelphia that will accelerate the production of homes and create jobs.

This RFI seeks information on site parameters, facility requirements, operational considerations and financial models to successfully build and operate modular construction housing factories.

To learn more and apply, please visit:
bit.ly/4pW94VJ or click the link in our bio.

Fannie Mae Just Made It Easier to Invest in ADUs—Here's What That Means For Investors Fannie Mae just supersized a landlord’s potential income by expanding financing for accessory dwelling units (ADUs).

There are two ways to achieve affordability. Lower the price or increase the income available to purchase or rent. Nearly all housing policy is directed at lowering the price, with subsidies and below market pricing. Kudos to Santa Fe to recognize there are other ways to get where cities need to be when it comes to expanding the supply of affordable housing.

Santa Fe tackles rental rates with first-in-US minimum wage approach Santa Fe is the first city in the U.S. to directly link wages to housing affordability, aiming to counter high rents.

The federal government's proposed and frankly bonkers changes in policy over ideological goals are being challenged by local governments grappling with the real-world implications of these changes. In this case, HUD's proposed changes to homelessness services grants will cause massive displacement of people from shelter and huge disruptions to social safety nets built over decades. This is not how government is supposed to operate and hopefully, federal courts will intervene to prevent these changes from going into effect. Smart Cities Dive has more

https://zurl.co/Jyo00

Local governments sue after HUD rewrites homelessness grants ‘mere weeks’ from deadline The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s policy shifts could displace as many as 170,000 people, according to a lawsuit.

When Brian White moderated a panel on the implications of AI in community development at the 2025 Ohio Land Bank Conference, he warned that AI stood to displace a lot of workers. That displacement, coupled with widespread automation and the massive water and energy consumption of data centers, were issues land banks needed to be thinking about. Why? Because land banks work to put property back to productive use and productive uses require business activity and people to live in homes near their jobs. No jobs for people = no people in homes and buildings.

It was a rather bleak assessment, but a recent study from MIT suggests it may not have been bleak enough. The study, based on modeling, suggests AI might be ready to displace 11.7% of the US labor market, representing $1.7 trillion (that's trillion with a T) in economic output.

When computers and automation replace human work, it can free up humans to do other work. But what other work will there be, when 11.7% of the labor force is made fungible almost overnight?

CNBC has a news item on the study. It's definitely the kind of thing that should be top of mind for all us working to rebuild communities: https://zurl.co/3H4DW

MIT study finds AI can already replace 11.7% of U.S. workforce Artificial intelligence can already replace 11.7% of the U.S. labor market, across finance, health care and professional services, according to MIT's study.