For example, neighborhood business organizations target growth in specific commercial areas by lobbying government authorities for special tax rates and real estate developments.
"[4] In the late 19th century, reformers discovered less-than-desirable areas of the country where communities were overcrowded, unhealthy, poor, and located near factories, docks, and other places of employment.
In the early twentieth century during the Progressive Era, reformers began making connections between the condition of communities and "social ills" such as crime and poverty and proposing ways to improve upon them.
[5] The Progressive agenda of political, social, and physical reform swept the nation and led to comprehensive antipoverty strategies, embodied by New Deal programs and other grants in the 1930s.
Housing policy and real estate practices stifled upward mobility for non-whites, and their communities developed with unique characteristics and problems as a result.
More loan programs, grants, and fair housing policies were implemented throughout the 1960s and 1970s but still failed to be non-discriminatory on the basis of race in some cases thus shaping communities in a particular fashion.
Many initiatives existed at this time to renew inner cities and rural areas while also tackling social issues such as eradicating drugs and improving education.
Much of this began in the 1980s, 2 decades after gaining independence, when the World Bank declared Nigeria eligible to receive funds from the International Development Association (IDA).
Strategies to do so would include improving the infrastructure and physical appearance of commercial areas, the quality of quantity of residential housing, and the transportation systems in a neighborhood.
[5] Community Development Corporations, reformers and other agencies have other common initiatives including services to fight homelessness, lack of jobs, drug abuse, violence and crime as well as quality medical and childcare and home ownership opportunities while also bringing economic prosperity.