What's the connection between Boston and this Kensington business corridor?

Leaders from Philly’s Kensington Corridor Trust and the Boston Ujima Project joined a panel hosted by ImpactPHL this month to discuss the work they are doing in their respective cities to support small business, and ensure the people who have lived in their neighborhood for years get to stay there amid changes.ImpactPHL committee member and Activest cofounder Ryan Bowers led the conversation with Kensington Corridor Trust Executive Director Adriana Abizadeh and Boston Ujima Project Executive Director Nia Evans.Kensington Corridor Trust was started in 2019 as a response to gentrification in the Kensington neighborhood.The organization purchases (mostly) commercial mixed-use real estate on the Kensington Avenue Corridor which is then put into a trust for the neighborhood to control.

Kensington Corridor Trust is now one of those “translocal” members.” Abizadeh said Kensington Corridor Trust wants to be “model making” itself, meaning “we are really thinking about what it would look like to have the neighborhood trust model replicated both within Philadelphia and beyond — perhaps not in its exact form, but acknowledging that it can be replicated and scaled to meet many purposes.