Reclaiming Your Community

How can we solve the problem of persistent poverty in in low-status communities? Just like companies have talent-retention strategies, Majora Carter argues that these communities need them too. They cannot succeed if their most gifted residents measure their success by how far away they get. Carter--a MacArthur fellow, Peabody award-winner, and serial entrepreneur--could have left too, but she chose to stay in the South Bronx and develop a new way to revitalize and preserve her home. She advocates measure like:

- Building mixed-income instead of low-income housing to create a diverse and robust economic ecosystem
- Developing vibrant "third spaces"--restaurants, bookstores, places like Carter's Boogie Down Grind Cafe--to keep people and dollars in the community
- Showing homeowners how to maximize the value of their property so they can resist selling out and build generational wealth.

This is a profoundly personal book. Carter is candid about her success and setbacks, and her struggles as a woman of color confronting the mostly "male and pale" real estate and nonprofit and philanthropic establishments. It is a powerful rethinking of poverty, economic development, and the meaning of success.