Strategies

Connect incarcerated fathers to their families and prepare them for release via small group education sessions that address fathering knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors

Establish voluntary formal groups of residents who work together to create a unified voice, enhance living conditions in their neighborhood, and address neighborhood concerns

Provide home visiting services to low income, first time mothers and their babies, starting during pregnancy and continuing through a child’s second birthday

Support site-specific plans for crop production that match nutrient applications to crop needs, typically with agricultural best management practices

Allow community members to gather, socialize, walk, run, bike, skate, etc. on streets temporarily to closed to motorized traffic; also called Ciclovía programs

Establish roads that avoid built-up areas such as towns, cities, or commercial/business districts

Engage community members to determine how public budgets are spent, ideally to improve neighborhood conditions and reduce inequality.

Use pervious concrete, porous asphalt, permeable interlocking pavers, open-jointed blocks or cells, or other permeable pavement in individual or commercial development efforts; also called porous or pervious pavement

Prohibit the manufacture, use, and provision of single-use plastic bags, either partially or completely, and provide education and outreach to raise consumer awareness and support of bans

Establish programs that accept expired, unwanted, or unused medicines from designated users and dispose of them responsibly

Bring people with diverse values and perspectives together to engage in facilitated, inclusive, and informed dialogues about a topic of public concern. Examples include Citizens’ Initiative Reviews, deliberative polling, citizen juries, and citizen’s assemblies.

Lend materials, offer gathering space, and provide educational, civic, and social programming; open to the community and publicly funded

Introduce or expand transportation options that are available to the public and run on a scheduled timetable (e.g., buses, trains, ferries, rapid transit, etc.)

Prevent radon from entering occupied buildings and reduce existing indoor air radon levels via soil depressurization, home or room pressurization, heat recovery ventilation, etc.

Use ready-made or home constructed barrel systems to collect and store rainwater from rooftops that would otherwise flow to storm drains and streams

Establish bioretention systems (e.g., rain gardens, bioretention cells, green roofs, planter boxes, bioswales, etc.) to make city landscapes more permeable to help control stormwater

Transition families and individuals experiencing homelessness into permanent housing quickly, often with supports such as short-term financial assistance, case management, landlord negotiations, etc.

Establish tenant protections via regulations to the housing rental market such as limits on rent increases and eviction protections for tenants with low incomes; typically via rent stabilization

Apologize for the history and legacy of slavery and provide direct payments or community investments to Black descendants of people enslaved in the U.S.

Establish transportation services for areas with low population densities using publicly funded buses and vans on a set schedule, dial-a-ride transit, volunteer ridesharing, etc.

Promote walking and biking to school through education, incentives, and environmental changes; often called SRTS

Provide incentives to trade in old cars or light duty trucks with low fuel efficiency and high emissions and buy new vehicles with higher efficiency and lower emissions; also called scrappage or vehicle early retirement programs

Provide permanent, basic rental housing with social services available on-site or by referral, usually for families with low incomes, older adults, veterans, or people with disabilities

Support individual and group use of internet-based tools to receive news, communicate or share information, collaborate on ideas, mobilize networks, and make collective decisions

Coordinate access to services across delivery systems and disciplinary boundaries (e.g., housing, disability, physical health, mental health, child welfare, workforce services, etc.)

Create designated tax districts that generate revenue to invest in affordable housing initiatives, blight remediation, and economic development efforts

Modify the built environment to affect traffic speed and patterns via speed humps, pedestrian center crossing islands, roundabouts, etc.

Support and strengthen traumatized and distressed residents and communities and address effects of community trauma (e.g., poverty, violence, structural racism, etc.) via a comprehensive, multi-stakeholder, and multilevel approach

Implement anti-idling policies and awareness campaigns to reduce engine idling for passenger vehicles, school buses, and/or equipment and truck fleets

Require scheduled testing of vehicles’ tailpipe and evaporative emissions; federally mandated in areas with particularly poor air quality

Increase the number of registered voters through initiatives that reduce barriers and expand accessibility, including automatic voter registration (AVR), voter registration drives, easing voter registration requirements, and expanding registration sites

Increase voter turnout through get-out-the-vote campaigns and initiatives to make voting more convenient such as allowing early in-person voting, vote-by-mail, or expanding polling locations and hours

Provide assistance to families with low incomes to make their homes more energy efficient and to permanently reduce their energy bills

Teach students attitudes, skills, knowledge, and behavior needed to participate in and contribute to a democracy

Provide youth with leadership building opportunities, often through social activities such as advocacy groups, peer education, youth-led participatory research, and local government youth advisory councils and boards

Reform zoning regulations to remove exclusionary zoning codes, address physical environment aesthetics and safety, street continuity and connectivity, residential density, and mixed-use development, etc.