NNIP Activities

The full-scale implementation of NNIP began in late 1996, funded jointly by the Annie E. Casey and Rockefeller Foundations. Since then, the partnership as a whole has met three to four times each year in various cities to work on assigned products, to plan future activities, and, in some instances, to provide direct technical assistance to institutions in the host cities. The staffs of the Urban Institute and local NNIP partners have pursued an active agenda in each of the following areas:

Cross-Site Action Initiatives
Tool Building and Dissemination
Direct Technical Assistance and Training

1. Cross-Site Action Initiatives: Using Data to Drive Community Change

Cross-site initiatives offer important insights for national and local policy. NNIP assembles partners' data in one place, examines how issues and the dynamics of neighborhood change vary across cities, and builds in effective strategies to document, assess and disseminate comparative cross-city findings. NNIP also works with the partners to apply neighborhood level data to community change agendas in innovative ways and use cross-site analyses to motivate local policy and program development. The cross-site approach allows NNIP to learn much more about both the dynamics of neighborhood change and the effectiveness of various programmatic responses than would ever be possible in initiatives in only one city, or in which advanced data work linked to action was not a central feature.

George Galster of Wayne State University The partnership's cross-site action initiatives cover a range of policy issues. In the past, NNIP partners and staff have completed cross-site studies on welfare reform and neighborhood health. NNIP partners are currently participating in cross-site initiatives that focus on the challenges of prisoner reentry in distressed neighborhoods, the use of parcel based data systems to support strategic community development, and the design and use of neighborhood level indicators for youth development. Several partners also contribute to the Arts and Culture Indicators in Community Building Project (ACIP), an ongoing cross-site initiative that explores the development of arts and culture indicators for use in local planning, policymaking and community building.

2. Ongoing Work in Tool Building and Dissemination to Advance the Field

Bruce Katz of the Brookings Institution and Ann Rosewater of the Dept. of Human Services

One of the most promising avenues for building capacity in distressed neighborhoods is helping residents learn how to take advantage of advances in information technology. NNIP has examined the current state of the art in this field and developed a framework and approach for moving it forward. This approach entails work in three topical areas: (1) building databases as tools for community collaboration and action; (2) building community capacity to use data effectively; and (3) building indicators of neighborhood health and change.

Over the next few years, NNIP will continue to perform the same basic types of tool-building and dissemination activities it has performed in the past: (1) preparing tools and data systems that advance the state of the art; and (2) facilitating awareness and learning.

NNIP develops and field tests a variety of tools including databases, how-to handbooks, training curricula, websites, and reports. Guidebooks and other products document methods and techniques based on innovations by partners in the field. Most of the partnership's written products are available on the Publications section of this website.

The partnership also regularly updates its national database, the National Neighborhood Data System (NNDS). The database is used for national cross-city analysis, to efficiently provide updated data subsets for local partners, and to prepare data "starters kits" for groups in new cities. The system has two components. The first contains a selected set of comparable census tract level indicators (mostly administrative data), drawn from the systems of the local partners. The second component integrates information from national data sets, mostly at the census tract level, for all parts of the country.

NNIP also facilitates networking among institutions in cities that have either established NNIP-type capacities or are taking steps toward that objective. NNIP staff maintain an email listserv (NNIP News) of more than 400 members. In addition, the partnership conducts semi-annual partnership meetings and regular NNIP conferences and workshops for broader audiences. Urban Institute and partner staff also frequently make presentations on NNIP—how it works, its implications and its potential—to national and regional conferences of groups interested in community building, local policymaking, and social indicators.

3. Direct Technical Assistance and Training

Both Urban Institute and partner staffs provide direct technical assistance to help groups in new cities get started in building NNIP-type capacities. Technical assistance topics include how to set up a new institution for these purposes, the technical aspects of developing a data warehouse, designing and applying indicators, and conducting community surveys. NNIP provided technical assistance to groups in Baltimore, Camden, Des Moines, Hartford, Louisville, Miami, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Washington DC before these cities joined the partnership. Other outreach efforts have been made to organizations in Battle Creek, Grand Rapids, Kansas City, Richmond, and San Antonio.

NNIP is working to expand efforts to provide technical assistance to practitioners and other engaged in developing neighborhood information systems.

For additional information, e-mail NNIP at nnip@ui.urban.org.