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Thriving Neighborhoods Lab

Pod For Good Media
Community Quarterback
Early Childhood Development 2.0
Neighborhood
Toxic Stress
Poverty In Place
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Grounded Solutions Network
Poverty
Neuroscience
Neighborhoods
Toxic Stressors
Environmental Conditions
Asset-Based Community Development
Holistic Neighborhood Development
Community Land Trust
Neighborhood Transformation
Cerca Solutions
Place-Based Policy
Shared Equity
Purpose Built Communities

The Thriving Neighborhoods Podcast explores what it takes to create lasting transformation in historically disinvested communities. Hosted by Cerca Solutions founders Kirk and Markos Wester-Rivera, each episode features conversations about ideas and innovations working at the intersection of housing, education, economic opportunity, and community leadership. Drawing from decades of lived experienc... more

PublishesTwice monthlyEpisodes9Founded4 months ago
Number of ListenersCategories
BusinessSociety & CultureNon-Profit

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Artwork for Thriving Neighborhoods Lab

Latest Episodes

Carol Naughton has spent more than thirty years inside some of the most consequential neighborhood transformation efforts in the country, from leading the East Lake Foundation to helping launch Purpose Built Communities in 2009, where she has served ... more

Investment without protection displaces the people it was supposed to help. Kirk Wester-Rivera sits down with Tony Pickett, CEO of Grounded Solutions Network, to work through the central tension that lives underneath all neighborhood revitalization w... more

Good work done in silos rarely adds up to transformation. Housing organizations build housing. Education groups improve schools. Workforce programs create job pathways. And yet neighborhoods stay stuck. This episode gets into why.

Kirk and Markos We... more

Logan Herring built REACH Riverside after seeing something that practitioners across the country quietly recognize but rarely name: a neighborhood full of good organizations doing good work can still fail to produce transformation if no one is holdin... more

Kirk and Markos discuss one of the core tensions in community development: how to build on what a community already has while being honest about what it still needs. They explore why leading with community strengths matters, why external resources ar... more

Neighborhoods occupy a unique position in community development, large enough to address systemic challenges, small enough for residents to have real influence over outcomes. In this episode, Kirk and Markos explore why the neighborhood scale is part... more

What happens to a child's developing brain when their neighborhood is starved of investment? In this episode, Kirk Wester-Rivera sits down with Dr. Doug Jutte to go beyond the social and economic dimensions of place-based poverty and into the biology... more

How did concentrated poverty become engineered into specific neighborhoods across America? In this conversation, Kirk sits down with David Edwards, the Policy Advisor for Neighborhoods at the City of Atlanta and Founder and Co-Director of the Center ... more

Key Facts

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Podcast Host
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Find out how many people listen to this podcast per episode and each month.

Recent Guests

Carol Naughton
CEO of Purpose Built Communities
Purpose Built Communities
Episode: The Long Game - Why Transformation Takes Generations
Tony Pickett
CEO of Grounded Solutions Network
Grounded Solutions Network
Episode: The Inclusive Growth Paradox - Why Investment & Protection Must Go Together
Logan Herring
CEO of the Work Group and founder of REACH Riverside
Work Group; REACH Riverside
Episode: The Community Quarterback - Why Every Neighborhood Needs a Lead Entity
Douglas Jutte
Senior advisor with First Place Partners, founder of Building Healthy Places Network
First Place Partners, Building Healthy Places Network, Harvard
Episode: The Neuroscience of Neighborhoods
David Edwards
Former CEO of Purpose Built Communities; Policy Advisor for the City of Atlanta; Director of the Center for Urban Research at Georgia Tech
Purpose Built Communities / City of Atlanta / Georgia Tech
Episode: The Architecture of Neighborhood Inequality

Host

Kirk Wester-Rivera
Host of The Thriving Neighborhoods Lab (and related series); founder associated with Cerca Solutions, focusing on neighborhood transformation and community quarterback frameworks.

Chart Rankings

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Talking Points

Recent interactions between the hosts and their guests.

The Architecture of Neighborhood Inequality
Q: What are the three components of gentrification you focus on to distinguish it from revitalization, and how do you protect residents while investing in neighborhoods?
Direct displacement, accessibility, and cultural displacement are the three pillars. Protecting residents means offering property tax relief, financial literacy and titling, and ensuring a guaranteed floor of affordable housing, while also intentionally guiding new investments and preserving the neighborhood's culture so existing residents can stay and benefit from improvements.
The Architecture of Neighborhood Inequality
Q: Can you elaborate on why you frame intergenerational poverty as a problem of place rather than people?
Because the evidence shows that concentrated poverty and the surrounding environment—housing, schools, safety, access to services—shapes outcomes just as strongly as individual circumstances. Place-based investments, coordinated across sectors, create the conditions for better education, health, and economic mobility, which then feed back into the community and its children.
The Community Quarterback - Why Every Neighborhood Needs a Lead Entity
Q: What are the costs and commitments required to be a community quarterback, organizationally and relationally?
Leadership requires substantial personal and organizational investment, including time, travel, boards, and building a multi-organization budget (~$15 million across three organizations with 80+ full-time staff). It also demands long-term perspective, with funding often favoring direct service over coordinating bodies, hence the need for a sustainable business model.
The Community Quarterback - Why Every Neighborhood Needs a Lead Entity
Q: How did you come to the conclusion that a community quarterback was needed, and what makes this function different from existing structures?
The discovery of the purpose-built model, plus gaps in holistic neighborhood thinking, showed that a stand-alone school or center could not drive broad change. The quarterback coordinates multiple entities, elevates systemic planning, and ensures the neighborhood is the client, not just a sum of services.

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Frequently Asked Questions About Thriving Neighborhoods Lab

What is Thriving Neighborhoods Lab about and what kind of topics does it cover?

The show centers on long-horizon, place-based transformation in disinvested neighborhoods, with a strong emphasis on holistic approaches that combine housing, education, health, economic opportunity, and community leadership. Episodes feature practitioners and researchers who share practical frameworks—such as a community quarterback model, back-office governance, and multi-sector collaboration—grounded in real-world case studies (e.g., East Lake, REACH Riverside, Tulsa) to illustrate sustainable change that endures beyond programs. Notable throughlines include the need for proximity to residents, durable funding strategies, and governance that prioritizes residents as co-stewards. The format is concise, actionable, and geared toward funder... more

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Thriving Neighborhoods Lab launched 4 months ago and published 9 episodes to date. You can find more information about this podcast including rankings, audience demographics and engagement in our podcast database.

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What guests have appeared on Thriving Neighborhoods Lab?

Recent guests on Thriving Neighborhoods Lab include:

1. Carol Naughton
2. Tony Pickett
3. Logan Herring
4. Douglas Jutte
5. David Edwards

To view more recent guests and their details, simply upgrade your Rephonic account. You'll also get access to a typical guest profile to help you decide if the show is worth pitching.

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