ABSTRACT
This chapter draws on data collected for a study of Baltimore’s 21st Century School Buildings Program (21CSBP), funded by the Maryland Philanthropy Network’s School-Centered Neighborhood Investment Initiative, to investigate the potential of leveraging a school facilities investment for community development. The analysis uses a framework that describes four domains of community development: social, institutional, economic, and physical. Existing community conditions, including market conditions and community trust and social cohesion, can facilitate or constrain whether and how schools catalyze community development across the four domains. Leveraging school building investments for community development hinges on a clear vision and staff capacity to implement this vision. Finally, definitional, geographic, and jurisdictional divides between school districts and city agencies further complicate the potential for cross-sector connections at the neighborhood level. These findings underscore the possibilities of school facility investments and community schools for supporting community development and affirm the deep-seated challenges that stakeholders face to work as collective stewards of a shared social agenda for school and neighborhood change.
