Happy Thanksgiving!

It’s a short week in the Verdunity office, but we weren’t going to head out without sharing a few good reads (and a couple great listens, if we may be so immodest):

This week's things to know:

NEW on the Go Cultivate! podcast:

Are We Doing This Right? – Public Engagement Edition

What does public engagement look like when it's well done? What are some pitfalls to look out for? Who and what is it for, exactly? We explore in this two-part discussion.

And here’s what we’ve been reading:

1. How a City Fought Runaway Capitalism and Won

Many cities have had the discussions about payday lending. Some are talking about food deserts and the way dollar stores are taking advantage. A few are doing something about it. Enter Tulsa, led by the efforts of Council member Vanessa Hall-Harper. As she puts it, "When you let the market dictate, that’s how you end up with poor, disenfranchised communities … because if the market is dictating, then there’s no soul in that process. It’s whatever makes money."

We talk often on our team about building communities that are invested, diverse, and are locally wealthy – in terms of financial resources and in terms of access. This is not something that simply happens on its own. Values and priorities in governance make this easily attainable or wholly improbable. This is a good, thought-provoking read as we approach a holiday where families across every city should be able to know what it's like to have quality food readily available to put on the table. – AJ

Do you enjoy these weekly roundups? (Why wouldn’t you?) You can get them sent straight to your email inbox every Friday, if you’re into that.

2. Detroit’s recovery: The glass is half-full at most

Detroit’s can be used to justify a number of different ideologies – a point Chuck Marohn makes in his Strong America presentation, which I saw last week. However, it can be tough to distill what lessons we should really be learning from the city. In this piece, the authors explore whether the growth experienced in downtown Detroit has expanded to all corners of the city.

Growth in Detroit has been mostly in downtown, and less impressive than the popular narratives suggest. Additionally, this growth has led to increasing inequity. "Population, employment and incomes continue to decrease, while vacancies and poverty have increased." Read more to find out how TIFs might extract money from the city's general fund in favor of large developers, how even minimum wage jobs for lower classes can boost the economy significantly, and how education can help turn the other 95% of Detroit around. – Tim

3. 101 Ways to Live Sustainably

A lot about what I wanted to work in and around upon graduating in May was sustainability. This list has me thinking. What could I be doing to make a sustainable difference in my community? In my home? This list has some nice small-scale actions, but also a number of ideas with community-wide implications. – Ryan

4. Why Rent Control Works

If you follow urban issues much, and you’ve heard of rent control, you’ve probably heard the case against it. Here’s a brief argument for it. (I also shared this piece a few months back, and here’s another argument for rent control, if you’re looking for more.) – Jordan

Want to learn more about how fiscal analysis can help you make your city stronger financially?

We created a new sister website showcasing how we use math, maps, and money to help cities communicate your resource gap and explore ways to increase tax revenue and improve service efficiency without necessarily raising taxes.

Have a look! →

Hey, friends in local government:

Have thoughts on any of the links above? Think we missed something essential? We’re discussing these topics and more over on our brand-new online community, exclusively for local government employees.* Sign up for the Community Cultivators Network and join the discussion!

* The network is currently only for those wonderful folks out there who work in local government. If you’re not currently working for a city, town, or county, we still love you (and are sure many of you would add value to the community), but we want to keep our commitment to making this a community focused specifically on our friends working in local government. Thanks for understanding!