How can neighborhoods attract investment while helping longtime residents stay, thrive, and shape what comes next?

On November 10, Neighborhood Allies President and CEO Presley Gillespie explored this question with Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design planning and design class as a returning guest lecturer for The Gentrification Debates: Perceptions and Realities of Neighborhood Change.

His presentation, Creating Neighborhoods of Opportunity in Pittsburgh, drew on Pittsburgh’s East Liberty, Larimer, and Homewood neighborhoods to examine the connections between investment, displacement, community identity, and economic opportunity.

Presley shared how Neighborhood Allies brings together resident voices, design support, development expertise, and funding to help communities turn their ideas into reality.

A central theme was the importance of recognizing what already holds a neighborhood together: longtime homeowners, small businesses, cultural institutions, and the relationships residents have built. Understanding those strengths and what residents want to protect can help guide future investment.

Presley also challenged students to consider how we define successful neighborhood change. Alongside new development and investment, we must ask: Who stays? Who feels safe and supported? Do residents feel connected to their neighbors and able to influence decisions? Are their financial circumstances improving?

These questions reflect a guiding belief in Neighborhood Allies’ work: neighborhood investment should create lasting opportunities for the people who call those communities home.