Economic and Community Development

Technical assistance, research and strategic collaboration to create livable neighborhoods and a stronger economy

Community-Based Planning

The Pratt Center works with community organizations in all five boroughs that seek to influence the shape of the local built environment and helps develop strategies for preserving and creating affordable housing, decent schools, desirable retail, accessible open space, and authentic neighborhood character.

We help build consensus in diverse communities, and collaborate with residents, business owners, and other stakeholders to identify their needs and the tools--including zoning, historic preservation and economic investment--that will help them build the neighborhood they want to see.

Our community planning work involves a delicate balance. We must make sure that neighborhoods remain or become livable. Communities and their spaces must be strengthened and preserved, rather than displaced. But ultimately neighborhoods need development in order to provide housing, economic opportunity and much more. The Pratt Center advises groups on how to build livable, affordable, and sustainable neighborhoods.

Pratt Center's Community Planning services include:

Visioning

We facilitate a process in which communities identify their needs and workable strategies for addressing them through the urban planning process.

Education

Pratt Center staff hold workshops, testify at hearings, and speak at other public events to inform local groups and officials about challenges and opportunities confronting their neighborhoods.

Research

Planners collect data and generate reports, presentations, and maps to document neighborhood needs.

Community Plans

We provide recommendations for action and support advocacy efforts to advance them.

New York Industrial Retention Network

The New York Industrial Retention Network (NYIRN) is an economic development organization established in 1997 to strengthen New York City's manufacturing sector and promote sustainable development. In 2010, NYIRN consolidated with the Pratt Center for Community Development and is now a project of the Pratt Center.

NYIRN has worked with more than 2,100 local businesses employing 93,000 people. In many instances, NYIRN’s intervention has been crucial to keeping those companies and jobs in New York City. Its research and advocacy led to the creation of New York City's Industrial Business Zones, the establishment of funds to help secure and improve manufacturing space, and the growth of green manufacturing in the city.

NYIRN offers and supports:

• Business Services
• Green Manufacturing
• Policy Research and Advocacy

As new entrepreneurs making everything from salsa to shoes emerge alongside longstanding industrial businesses, NYIRN helps companies big and small access the services, information and support they need to thrive. The manufacturers NYIRN works with provide critical economic benefits to New York City, while benefiting themselves from their urban locations. Urban centers favor 21st-century production: built on supple, peer-to-peer networks, rather than large, vertically integrated, multi-tiered entities. Synergies between these decentralized networks promote the spillovers and knowledge-sharing that not only help businesses innovate, but in turn also help build stronger, more adaptable urban economies. Local manufacturers are indispensible partners to other industries, forging strong linkages within metropolitan economies and generating multiplier effects within and across the region.