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entrepreneurship

A Makerspace Revitalizes Lives, Small Businesses And A Neighborhood

July 22, 2025 Ilana Preuss, Next City. , , ,
The scent of sawdust greets Gabriella Mooney as she walks through the doors of MASS Collective, heading for an office in the back. It’s a busy weeknight, and Julia Hill – a local master welder, artist and sculptor – is showing a group of five apprentices the tools for MIG welding. At Hill’s cue, they pull down their masks, and the welding torch lights up the room with sparks. As Mooney walks farther into the shop, she hears the grind of the CNC machine from another class of 10 people and sees several young adults refining their creations with the woodshop sander. This space has been like a second home for Mooney, who over the past decade has led the charge to create a neighborhood makerspace and apprenticeship program in downtown Atlanta.

This Baltimore Food Incubator Is A Local Economic Engine

July 13, 2025 Ilana Preuss, Next City. , , ,
Walking up the stone steps to MFG Toffee & Bark Company a few days ahead of the shop’s grand opening in Baltimore’s Little Italy, chef Sylva Lin inhales the scent of sugar and espresso coming from the kitchen. She’s dropping by to see the fruit of her efforts incubating local food businesses out of Culinary Architecture, the project she launched a decade ago. After a successful career in catering and professional kitchens, Lin’s entrepreneurial spirit was hungry to create a space that would benefit her neighborhood in Baltimore. She didn’t just want to offer interesting foods. She wanted to connect with neighbors, create good-paying jobs and draw foot traffic to support other businesses on the block.

Getting Out Of The Nonprofit Box

June 16, 2025 Elias Crim, Solidarity Hall. , , ,
About a year ago, Jim invited me to a group conversation and open house at a place called DC Central Kitchen in southwest DC. I really knew nothing about the place beyond the fact that they had found a great way to recycle waste food from area restaurants into a meals program for the homeless. I figured we would be meeting in a cramped little room next to a noisy commercial kitchen at an area church. But as we used to say in my Texas hometown, au contraire. In 2023, DC Central Kitchen relocated to the Klein Center for Jobs and Justice where its team found themselves with a 36,000 sq. ft. bi-level space hosting a large community kitchen, a training facility, and an urban food hub.

Entrepreneur’s Eviction Leads To Community Model For The World

March 5, 2025 Ilana Preuss, Next City. , , , , ,
Kiyomi Rollins can smell the coffee even before she walks through the door at The Ke’nekt Cooperative in Atlanta’s Westview neighborhood. Sunshine fills the space with energy; every seat is full. She smiles at the neighborhood aunties sitting next to the entrepreneurs from Atlanta University Center and the community resident teaching a small group about social media content creation for neighborhood startups. She watches as a middle-schooler from down the street fundraises for his school trip and each person around the table helps out however they can.

Sewing Network Shows How Entrepreneurs Can Thrive In Place

January 27, 2025 Ilana Preuss, Next City. , , , ,
Despite no formal sewing training and few successful entrepreneurship examples in her neighborhood, Pittsburgh-based entrepreneur Nisha Blackwell has spent the last 10 years using her love of sewing to show her community that successful entrepreneurship is possible. Her boutique bowtie company Knotzland, upcycling rescued textiles and materials into high-quality bows through a distributed production model, shows how small-scale manufacturing can bring new life to struggling neighborhoods.

Under-Resourced Neighborhoods Can Be Incubators For Future Entrepreneurs

July 2, 2024 Walter Mendenhall, Next City. , , , , , ,
In 2016, I walked into a school’s career day on the west side of Chicago and met a great young man. This honor roll student played basketball and was respected by his peers. But despite these wonderful qualities, he sold drugs to pay for the things he desired. He was one of thousands of young Black men in Chicago who have the ambition, intelligence and leadership acumen to become successful, legitimate entrepreneurs but have no idea how to find that path, let alone follow it. There are tens of thousands more like him in cities across the country. Some put their entrepreneurial drive and leadership skills to destructive, and illegal, use.
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