Piece by Piece: Grassroots Building Blocks of a Transformed Economy.
by Dawn Nakano and Thad Williamson
Who Is My Neighbor? Economics As If Values Matter
Sojourners, April 1994

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Community Stability and Community Ownership

Many quality-of-life studies have indicated that the healthiest American communities--nice places to raise children, with good schools, responsive local governments, and a steady economy--typically have as a development anchor a large, stable public institution at the core of their economic lives. Institutions such as universities, state capitals and military installations do not flee to Mexico for higher profits, or put pressure on workers and local governments for lower wages and taxes. In this age of unprecedented capital mobility (and cutbacks in military spending), the challenge for local communities is to create economic institutions that cannot move away, and that are responsive first and foremost to the community interest.

Since the 1960s, thousands of Community Development Corporations (CDCs) have worked to stabilize and revitalize local economies in cities and rural areas in every state. Although criticized for, among other things, their tendency to develop wasteful bureaucracies and create mostly low-skilled, low-paying jobs, a number of CDCs have succeeded in building the beginnings of a stable economic infrastructure upon which healthy communities can grow.

The Community Development Corporation of Kansas City (CDC-KC) in Kansas City, Missouri is one such CDC. Started by the Inner City Foundation in 1969, CDC-KC owns a manufacturing company, a 78-unit apartment complex and two commercial shopping centers, creating employment opportunities for many from the community. Profits from these ventures have been reinvested in further development of the neighborhood.

One of CDC-KC's most ambitious projects, the Linwood Shopping Center, was built on the site of a partially razed, abandoned hospital where the closing scenes of The Day After, an ABC television movie about life after a nuclear holocaust, was filmed. Today, an 80,000 square foot retail complex, which has maintained 100% occupancy rates since it opened in 1986, now stands on a site that had been used, "without props or alterations," to depict post-nuclear holocaust America.

The site had long been a source of conflict and concern in the community. In the late 1970s, the local Black Ministers Union (BMU), defeated a proposal to construct a state prison on the site and bought the land, in part with funds collected from their congregations. It was sold to CDC-KC for $1 in 1981, after the BMU approached the organization about developing the land. A study was conducted which determined that a supermarket was badly needed in the area: "$76 million a year was leaving the community for the suburbs because of inadequate local shopping facilities."

Working with the support of the BMU--a formidable force in an area with more than 125 churches within a 2 mile radius--CDC-KC raised $5 million for the project and began construction. Funding came from a variety of public and private sources including nearly $500,000 invested by a group of 17 local businesspeople, loans from local banks, approximately $200,000 raised over a five year period from parishioner donations at 31 local churches, and the proceeds from CDC-KCs sale of two parcels of land to two fast-food restaurant franchisees interested in locating at the corners of the project.

By all accounts, Linwood Shopping Center has been a huge success.

Beyond filling the practical needs of the community, CDC-KC efforts have prompted a dramatic change in the spirit of local residents. Don Maxwell, President of CDC-KC explained in an article in In These Times, "We have real broad-based ownership...That can be a real nuisance because everybody who put a dollar in the plate thinks they have a say. If the floors are dirty or paper is flying in the parking lot, they complain to the ministers, who call me and complain. But at the same time, it's probably the cleanest and best-kept supermarket you've ever seen. Everybody feels they own it."

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