Keeping Small Businesses in Place: Voices from the Field – Case Studies of Communities Combating Commercial Gentrification
Small Business Anti-Displacement Network
First published November 2023
Small businesses are vital to the social, cultural, and economic health of neighborhoods, particularly low-income communities of color. They foster community connectedness, provide local employment opportunities, connect residents to local goods and services, and allow a community’s dollars to remain in and improve their neighborhoods. Small businesses are also highly vulnerable to displacement when neighborhoods gentrify.
The Small Business Anti-Displacement Network (SBAN) addresses the critical concerns of communities that are vulnerable to gentrification. Housed at the University of Maryland’s National Center for Smart Growth
Research and Education, SBAN is a national network of organizations that work to prevent the displacement of small businesses owned by Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) and immigrants. Our network of small business leaders includes policymakers, nonprofit advocates, technical assistance providers, developers, financial institutions, scholars, and small business owners, who share knowledge and collaborate to advance innovative policies and practices that keep small businesses in place.
To fill critical policy and research gaps about what works in the field and support our members’ anti-displacement efforts, SBAN launched a call for case studies in summer 2022. The call invited member and non-member organizations to propose and write case studies of efforts to preserve small businesses in gentrifying neighborhoods in the United States and abroad. We sought case studies that would demonstrate how public, private, and nonprofit organizations are employing effective strategies. Our aim was to provide lessons for other organizations about how to advance anti-displacement policies and practices within and beyond their metropolitan areas, including examples of how a range of strategies and tools were being put into action.