2026 CDS Annual Conference

This presentation shares lessons from the redevelopment of Portland’s historic Hill Block, once a thriving center of Black life and later erased by urban renewal and state-led displacement. The project is a Black-led, community-governed organization working to restore housing, economic infrastructure, cultural space, and long-term stewardship to land that sat vacant for decades. Framed through a reparative development lens, the presentation examines how community development in action can move beyond politics toward repair by centering truth telling, redistribution, and community-led governance.