RESEARCH
Black Wealth Challenges in Norfolk
Norfolk is nearly half-Black and half-White. But when it comes to poverty the numbers are not so evenly split. Research on racial wealth disparities reveal a stark divide the city’s Black and White populations. Black individuals in Norfolk are nearly twice as likely to experience poverty compared to their White counterparts. This significant disparity is present in nearly every aspect of life, including differences in homeownership rates, employment opportunities, and access to resources.
Stacking the Deck for Resilient Community
Being dealt a pair of aces is a stroke of luck at the card table, but they are another matter entirely in extremely challenging times for a community trying to thrive. Researchers have identified two sets of ACEs: 1) Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) or categories of abuse, neglect, or dysfunction that correlate with poor health outcomes, and 2) Adverse Community Environments (ACEs) produced by structural racism. In combination, this pair of ACEs stacks the deck against community resilience….
Everybody’s Problem: Violence as an Adverse Community Environment
I recall a day when violence felt like something that happened in distant places to strangers. I could avoid thinking of it if I turned off the news or skipped the front pages of national newspapers. The accounts of violence I saw or read evoked outrage and empathy but not fear. It was noteworthy, not routine. It was present but not pervasive….
Affordable Housing
Dark Money is Flooding Norfolk Apartments.
Secret shell companies, undisclosed buyers, dark money. These terms have come to define the housing reality in Norfolk. Published in partnership with Norfolk Currents.
Norfolk’s Missed Opportunity Zones.
A federal program designed to spur business investments in poor neighborhoods is turning those same neighborhoods into mini-tax havens for the super-rich. Published in partnership with Norfolk Currents.
Gentrification
A short history of how neighborhoods became segregated nationally, and in Norfolk, Virginia. Part of the Urban Renewal Center's forum on Gentrification that took place in Norfolk, Virginia on August 22nd, 2019.
Climate Change
The ABCs of Adaptation.
An interactive dictionary of terms, data, and maps you need to know as Norfolk learns to ‘live with the water’. Part of the URC’s Concise Dictionary series.
Heat Islands and the Urban Canopy
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In Norfolk, formerly redlined neighborhoods are 3 degrees hotter than their affluent counterparts. Partly, this is because of a history of unequal tree canopy planting in poor neighborhoods. Published in partnership with Norfolk Currents.
School Segregation
Segregation: A History of Norfolk Schools.
For the first time, we are bringing material from archives across the country together with a narrative timeline to look at Norfolk, Virginia’s history of school segregation.
School Matters
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Schools today are more segregated than they were at least 30 years ago. And Norfolk is not exempt from this national trend. 65 years on from the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling, Norfolk’s schools are becoming de facto segregated as a result of neighborhood segregation.
