New Orleans Training Institute
Courses with Site Visits

These courses incorporate local awareness and real-life case studies to bring your community development learning to life.

ED101 Community Economic Development Principles, Practices and Strategies

Look at the theoretical base and practical applications of community economic development and learn to define it. Understand the goals, guiding principles, and measures of success; examine costs versus benefits of projects; and understand the multiplier effect, capital leakage, and the difference between basic and non-basic industries. Find out what is involved in making distinctions among strategies aimed at affecting the supply versus demand for labor, and how to make informed choices about the use of tools such as business incubators, loan funds, targeted real estate projects, and job training programs. Includes case studies, lectures, and a site visit to a local economic development project. First required course to obtain a professional certificate in Community Economic Development.

ED220 Learning Lab: Strategies for Addressing Food Deserts
Throughout the U.S., 24 million people live in food deserts - defined as either urban areas lacking access to a supermarket within one mile, or rural areas lacking similar access within 10 miles. Without a convenient and affordable way to buy healthy food, individuals either spend hours traveling, or are forced to feed their families less nutritious options, many of which are often more expensive. A number of initiatives have emerged across the country to address food deserts, from the federal Healthy Food Financing Initiative to local community-based solutions. This learning lab will take participants into the community to learn from practitioners at the forefront of local solutions, including the City of New Orleans’ Fresh Food Retailers Initiative and the New Orleans Food Cooperative.

CP249 Green in Action: New Orleans
For affordable housing practitioners who are ready to implement green and healthy housing methods and materials, here is an exciting one-day field-based experience you can't miss. After brief introductions in the classroom we will spend the day "on tour" visiting local outstanding sites that showcase green building in action. Tour sites highlight affordable housing, green economic development and cutting-edge materials and methods. Learn about specific successful approaches to greening affordable housing development from several angles. Understand a hierarchy of materials and methods to help you organize your green approach. Get an up-close look at uses of the latest materials and methods. This one-day session is designed for Rehab Specialists, Single Family Housing Developers, Project Managers and other nonprofit staff designing and managing green and healthy affordable housing.

NR115 Leveraging Market Forces to Attract Investment for Neighborhood Revitalization
This course is designed for practitioners, funders and policymakers who want to get more quality-of-life neighborhood impact through their revitalization efforts. We’ll use the latest advances in neighborhood revitalization to define a practical approach to change that acknowledges and works with market forces to attract the social and financial investments of current and future residents of a variety of incomes. The course includes a neighborhood site visit to read investment choices, diagnose underlying problems and brainstorm market-sensitive approaches to revitalization. We will identify outcomes regarding neighborhood image, real estate market, physical conditions, social conditions and residents' management of neighborhood issues, and outline strategies to advance those outcomes. You'll take home useful tools and resources, including worksheets for target market analysis and strategy development.

NR124 Reading a Neighborhood: What a Walk Around the Block Can Tell You
Learn how to quickly analyze what’s going on in a neighborhood during a block walk. What can the housing stock and businesses tell you? The people on the street and the streetscape itself? Hone your observation skills and take home a system to analyze what you see and how your assumptions can color your observations. This course includes a site visit where participants take part in a block walk, perform an analysis and discuss their findings in terms of neighborhood revitalization. Participants will come away with a practical how-to guide for conducting a block walk in their own communities.

NR270 Walkability and Bikeability for Healthy, Vibrant Neighborhoods
In 1969, 42% of US school children walked to school, while 15% were driven. By 2001, 50% of US school children were being driven by their parents to school, while only 16% walked. This interactive course examines how our communities came to be less pedestrian and bicycle-friendly, and how we can improve the built environment to support walking and biking, while also helping children and community members increase their daily exercise and nutritional intake. Participants will gain an understanding of the “Five Es” and several fun, low-cost strategies through which walking and biking can be encouraged. We will also learn how to use assessment tools like Active School Neighborhood, Walkability and Bikeability checklists to rank infrastructure conditions, identify needed resources to positively alter those conditions, and make their communities safer for pedestrians and bicyclists. The class includes a site visit to observe school dismissal as part of a bike and walk to school planning exercise.

 

 

Questions? Call us at (800) 438-5547 or e-mail us at training@nw.org.