History
Founded in 1964 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. In 1963, Pratt Institute Department of City and Regional Planning chair George Raymond set out to educate New Yorkers about how urban planning, done right, can build better neighborhoods. The Rockefeller Brothers Fund sponsored a Community Education Program at Pratt Institute to "help community groups in New York City obtain a basic understanding of planning theory and the political and economic realities of housing and urban renewal programs, as well as achieve a realistic appraisal of what citizens can rightfully expect of government in these several fields." Raymond and a Pratt Institute planning student named Ron Shiffman began working with a group of ministers on a study of Bedford-Stuyvesant, anticipating a city urban renewal program planned for part of the area. The Pratt Center's work with central Brooklyn organizations to develop a comprehensive plan to rebuild Bedford-Stuyvesant through job training and other economic development programs became the model for the Ford Foundation and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy's project to create community development corporations, in New York City and across the country, to contend with urban poverty, decaying housing and disinvestment.
Read more about this topic: Pratt Center For Community Development
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