Lighthouse Communities Programs

Community revitalization: a systemic approach

Lighthouse Communities views communities as complex systems. A system is an interaction of agents that has an emergent quality. Emergence means that the whole is more or different than the sum of its parts. From this perspective, Lighthouse believes that community development is primarily about restoring or improving the interaction (relationship) between various agents in a neighborhood.

To say that community development is about restoring relationships is a significant change from traditional approaches. Often, traditional development approaches have focused on providing capital, improving housing, and other secondary situations.

But Lighthouse believes that how various neighborhood stakeholders interact with the broader community is far more important. In other words, you can improve houses, roads or school buildings without improving the community.

Community Revitalization Tools through Lighthouse:

• Rental Development
• Homeownership
• Lead Hazard Remediation
• Commercial Corridor Development
• Neighborhood Housing Fund (NHF)
• Neighborhood Revitalization Strategy Area (NRSA)
  formerly Healthy Neighborhood Initiative (HNI)