Jump-Starting Main Street: A Case Study of the Los Angeles Neighborhood Initiative (LANI)

Author: Mahyar Arefi

Dissertation School: University of Southern California

Pages: 307

Publication Date: May 2000

Availability:
Available from the HUD USER Helpdesk P.O. Box 23268 Washington, DC 20026-3268 Toll Free: 1-800-245-2691 Fax: 1-202-708-9981 Email: oup@oup.org

Access Number: 10707

Descriptors:
Neighborhood revitalization. Economic development.

Abstract:

This dissertation was published in Cityscape: A Journal of Policy Development and Research, Volume 7, Number 1.

Download Mahyar Arefi's dissertation (PDF).

This article describes the experience of the Los Angeles Neighborhood Initiative (LANI), a single revitalization program that has aimed to jump-start languishing downtown Los Angeles neighborhoods since 1994. This experience will be discussed against the backdrop of two putative public policy tensions: people versus place prosperity and needs versus assets. The lessons learned from the revitalization outcomes of the original eight LANI areas suggest a continuum leading from consensus building through image building to capacity building and caution against “helping the wrong neighborhood” and “helping a neighborhood in the wrong way.”

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