The City of Cleveland has an aggressive program to tear down homes abandoned due to disrepair or foreclosure. As a result, the metropolitan area has an inventory of about 20,000 vacant lots. The financial crisis of 2007–08, which dramatically increased the number of homes in foreclosure, prompted Neighborhood Progress, Inc., a redevelopment intermediary now known as Cleveland Neighborhood Progress, to work with government officials and community development organizations on a solution to the growing problem of empty lots. A $250,000 grant from the Cleveland Foundation underwrote a formal study of strategies for sustainable land reuse in 2009.

Using $500,000 in federal urban redevelopment money, the public-private partnership subsequently piloted a demonstration project to test the feasibility of various reclamation ideas. Fifty-six neighborhood groups, churches, schools and individuals received grants from Neighborhood Progress’s “Re-Imagining a More Sustainable Cleveland” program in the first round in 2010. The successful conversion of weedy lots into community gardens, pocket parks, orchards and spacious side yards convinced the city to raise $1 million for a second round of grants in 2011.