Arthur Naparstek

Who was Arthur Naparstek?

Dr. Arthur J. Naparstek was a professor of social work and Dean of the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. He was an expert on urban redevelopment and neighborhood revitalization whose community-building concepts served as the basis for local and national government programs in both the United States and Israel.

In the U.S., Naparstek's work helped redefine the function of public housing through community-building. As director of the Cleveland Foundation Commission on Poverty in the early 1990s, Naparstek oversaw the drafting of "The Cleveland Community-Building Initiative" report. The study became the foundation for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Urban Revitalization Demonstration Act of 1993, known as HOPE VI. The multi-billion dollar HUD program re-conceived federal housing policy, in part, through community-building—by giving local community leaders and tenants a greater role in developing the revitalization plans for their housing projects and more control over operations.