The Pratt Center is the oldest university-based advocacy planning and technical assistance organization in the United States. Located in Brooklyn, New York, it focuses primarily on New York City and leverages the professional skills of Pratt Institute's academic departments—architecture, design, and urban planning—to work for a more just, equitable, and sustainable urban environment.
The Pratt Center was established to create a partnership between the Pratt Institute's planning department and local organizations who want to address issues of urban deterioration and poverty. The Pratt Center continues to work with Pratt, particularly the Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment, as a source of and resource for faculty, a place of employment and involvement for students, and an important bridge between classroom study and the neighborhoods of New York City.
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As a department of Pratt Institute, the Pratt Center is governed by the Pratt Institute Board of Trustees. In addition, they have created another body that also provides guidance and is composed of individuals from community and civic organizations, as well as academic and philanthropic institutions that are among the Pratt Center's current stakeholders.
Founded in 1963 with a grant from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Pratt Center's original goal was to create a partnership between Pratt Institute’s planning department and local New York organizations eager to address issues of urban deterioration and poverty.
One of the Pratt Center's first major projects was to help the Central Brooklyn Coordinating Council evaluate the impact of a proposed urban renewal plan on their neighborhoods. The planning model which grew out of that endeavor integrated housing, economic, and social planning considerations. This collaborative effort attracted the attention of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and led to the establishment of one of the first Ford Foundation funded Community Development Corporations in the country - the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation. With this early experience, the Pratt Center's role as an advocate for community empowerment was established, and the demand for the Pratt Center's program services expanded rapidly.
In 1965, under a federal Higher Education Act grant, the Pratt Center launched a participant education program to assist and train local residents in the process of community development. This was followed by a series of leadership training courses and the Pratt Center's sponsorship of the Central Brooklyn Neighborhood College. Administered by community residents, this University of the Streets program was targeted primarily to African—Americans and Latinos who had either dropped out of high school or lacked access to higher education.
A division of the Pratt Center, now the Pratt Planning and Architectural Collaborative, was formed in 1975 to provide direct architectural services to neighborhood-based housing groups who were taking on an increasing number of projects in communities where quality professional assistance was either unavailable or too costly.
In 1984, with the cooperation of the Development Training Institute, the Pratt Center established the Pratt Community Economic Development Internship, a program designed to build the capacity of community-based organizations to carry out housing and community economic development projects. Nearly 300 community leaders graduated from the program during its 12 years of operation.
The Pratt Center works to strengthen communities and their infrastructure. That requires them to work at many different levels:
Over the years the Pratt Center's policy analysis and advocacy initiatives have earned it a national reputation, particularly on issues of community planning, land use, inclusionary zoning, community economic development and affordable housing.
The Pratt Center for Community Development
"The City is Their Laboratory", Village Voice 8/6/2007: [1]