Living Cities

09/30/2026

A family can do everything it takes to buy a home and still be vulnerable when an unexpected expense arrives.

This new report from Urban Institute researchers funded by Living Cities explores how access to liquid reserves could help homeowners get through financial setbacks and stay in their homes. In a companion piece, our President and CEO Joe Scantlebury calls on the mortgage industry to test promising solutions and learn what works for families with limited savings.

Read Joe’s piece, then explore the research behind it: https://livingcities.org/getting-in-is-only-the-beginning-why-the-next-mortgage-reform-must-help-families-sustain-homeownership

Read the Urban Institute report: https://www.urban.org/research/publication/building-liquid-reserves-strengthen-homeownership-households-color

A statement from Joe Scantlebury, President and CEO of Living Cities on Building Liquid Reserves to Strengthen Homeownership for Households of Color, a report by Urban Institute researchers funded by…

09/21/2026

Memphis’s small business corridors are rooted in history, culture, and community leadership. In Whitehaven, Klondike and Smokey City, and Raleigh, local entrepreneurs and civic leaders are working together to strengthen the systems that help neighborhood businesses grow and build lasting wealth.

Our latest Breaking Barriers to Business (B3) deep dive highlights how these three corridors are expanding access to resources, strengthening business infrastructure, and creating more inclusive economic opportunities.

Living Cities is proud to advance this work alongside Main Street America, with support from the Truist Foundation. Together, we are partnering with local governments and business-support organizations across five Southeastern cities to help build thriving, community-driven business ecosystems.

Learn more about B3: https://livingcities.org/initiative/breaking-barriers-to-business/

https://youtu.be/q2gxikt85B0

08/04/2026

Rebuilding America’s Competitive Edge

What will it take to build a stronger, more competitive American economy?

In a recent Fast Company article, Living Cities President and CEO Joe Scantlebury argues that the answer begins with expanding who can participate in economic growth. When more entrepreneurs, innovators, and communities can access the knowledge, relationships, and financial resources they need, capital becomes more productive and new engines of growth can emerge.

Drawing on Living Cities’ 35 years of experience, Joe explores how leaders can move beyond funding individual ideas and begin building local ecosystems that expand opportunity, ownership, and innovation.

It means rebuilding how capital moves.

06/22/2026

What if paying rent on time could help more residents build credit, strengthen financial mobility, and move closer to ownership?

Join Living Cities this Thursday, June 25, from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. ET for part five of our webinar series, Rewiring Capital for Strong Local Economies.

In this session, Building the Ecosystem Capacity That Turns Rent Into Pathways to Ownership, Living Cities and leaders from Rochester, New York, will discuss how cities can help transform consistent rent payments into stronger credit and new pathways to asset ownership.

Register today to join the conversation:

05/08/2026

What does it take to move from strong partnerships to a real pipeline of investment-ready businesses?

That’s the focus of our next webinar in the Rewiring Capital for Strong Local Economies series.

Join Living Cities for From Partnership to Pipeline: How Cities Build the Deal Flow That Makes Capital Work, a conversation about how cities can intentionally build stronger pathways for small businesses and entrepreneurs, particularly in immigrant and underinvested communities.

This session will explore how cities align technical assistance, procurement, and capital access strategies to help more people move onto economic mobility pathways. We’ll hear from leaders in El Paso, Detroit, and St. Paul about what it looks like to build trust, respond to disruption, and create systems that help businesses become capital-ready.

Featured speakers include:

Mirella Tamayo, City of El Paso
Paul Jones, ProsperUS Detroit
Marcus Owens, City of St. Paul

This conversation is for city leaders, capital providers, community partners, and anyone interested in building more inclusive local economies.

The webinar takes place on May 14th, 2026, 1p.m. - 2p.m. EST.

Register now and join us.

City of Saint Paul - Government ProsperUs Detroit

05/04/2026

04/21/2026

Cities don’t just govern… they can connect the current ⚡

We’re back with Part 3 of our Rewiring Capital for Strong Local Economies webinar series—and this one gets to the heart of how real change moves: through relationships, trust, and capital that actually reaches the people building our neighborhoods.

The City as Capital Connectors: Partnering with Community Lenders to Build an Inclusive Economy explores how local governments can move beyond policy into partnership—working alongside CDFIs, MDIs, credit unions, and other mission-driven lenders already doing the work on the ground.

📅 April 22, 2026
⏰ 1:00–2:00 PM ET

This session brings together leaders who are actively rewiring how capital flows in their cities:

Filomania Falcucci, MBA PMP (City of Boston, CAAP)
Amine Benali (Local Enterprise Assistance Fund)
Liam Kelly Fleming (City of Philadelphia)
Santiago Carrillo (Living Cities)

Together, they’ll share how cities can deepen partnerships with community lenders to unlock funding, expand opportunity, and build more inclusive small business ecosystems.

What you’ll walk away with:

✅ Practical strategies to strengthen partnerships with community-based lenders
✅ Ways to leverage public resources for greater impact
✅ Real-world examples of cities acting as powerful capital connectors
✅ This is part three of a six-part journey—but each session stands on its own as a blueprint for action.

If you’re thinking about how capital actually reaches small businesses in your city… this conversation is for you.

👉 Register today and join us.
👉 And if someone in your network is doing this work, send this their way.

04/17/2026

Capital is not the constraint. Relationships are.

Across cities, funding is available, but too often it sits idle because the connections between people, institutions, and sectors aren’t strong enough to move it where it’s needed most. That gap isn’t accidental. It’s structural.

At Living Cities, we’ve seen firsthand that trust, coordination, and alignment aren’t “nice to have.” They are the infrastructure that determines whether capital flows at all.

That’s why we’ve submitted a session for :
Capital Absorption Depends on Relationships: Building the Missing Infrastructure

Led by Norris Williams and Santiago Carrillo, this session will share real examples from Chicago and Midwest cities and offer practical tools to help leaders strengthen the relationships that unlock capital in their own communities.

If this resonates with you, we’d appreciate your support.

👉 Vote here:
https://socapglobal.com/session-idea/capital-absorption-depends-on-relationships-building-the-missing-infrastructure/

It takes less than a minute. Enter your email, click vote, done.

And feel free to share with your network—every vote helps bring this conversation to the stage.

SOCAP - Social Capital Markets

Capital exists, but many communities lack the coordinated relationships needed to absorb and deploy it effectively. Living Cities has seen that trust and cross-sector alignment are not secondary factors, they are the infrastructure that determines whether capital moves at all. Through examples from....