Community improvement relies on strong local organizations and ties between those organizations, a MDRC study finds. The MacArthur-supported MDRC examined how networks of community organizations change over time in its Chicago Community Networks study, which observed nine Chicago neighborhoods from 2013-2016. In the study, organizations that rally other groups for shared purposes were the most prominent. The study highlights the importance of understanding the nature of neighborhood networks in order to gauge a community’s capacity to improve neighborhoods.
