Nearly 2,000 think tanks exist across the United States, such as the Brookings Institution, Urban Institute, and the Manhattan Institute. Many of them are contributing to the policy discourse impacting low- to middle-income communities of color, particularly in urban and surrounding areas – commonly known as the ghetto or the hood. Yet few organizations highlight scholars from these communities or incorporate their lived experience in policy development and research.

As a result, the hood is problematized, and policies are implemented that do not encourage long-term community development for the benefit of the people who live there or were raised there.

Furthermore, many people in the hood – including individuals as well as community organizing and advocacy agencies – do not have ready access to analytical research tools and resources for self-determination in the policy arena. 

The New Hood fills this gap by developing, identifying, and elevating policy analysis and perspectives of people from the hood, with a particular orientation toward multigenerational community development. 

The name “The New Hood” speaks to imagining what the hood could be for current and future generations. Rather than focusing exclusively on current problems, The New Hood will envision policies that build the hood for the benefit of the people from the hood.