Philadelphia conducted a market cluster analysis of the city's neighborhoods. The analysis identified six real estate market clusters: Regional Choice, High Value/Appreciating, Steady, Transitional, Distressed, and Reclamation. Coupled with this market analysis, the city initiated an open neighborhood planning process. This analysis helped the city's Neighborhood Transformation Initiative target their efforts. More details can be found here.

Richmond developed the Neighborhoods in Bloom program to address growing concerns about high crime and vacant, blighted housing. The city decided to target limited resources to select areas to have the greatest impact. Data on the city's neighborhoods was analyzed and the neighborhoods were classified into four broad categories based on their concentration of abandoned buildings, crime, poverty rates and other factors. Numerous community meetings were held to help identify the six neighborhoods most in need, and areas within those neighborhoods where investments would have the greatest impact. The city has focused its investment of HOME, CDBG and other state and federal resources in these target neighborhoods.

Baltimore conducted a series of neighborhood meetings resulting in vision statements for key areas of priority. To inform these plans and the development of specific strategies, the Planning Department developed a housing market typology based on aggregated housing and neighborhood data for the 271 neighborhood areas of the city. Four neighborhood types were created: Preservation, Stabilization, Reinvestment, and Redevelopment. Strategies for public investment were developed to address the needs for each of these neighborhood types. The city targeted Stabilization neighborhoods for housing upgrades, while Redevelopment neighborhoods required vacant property acquisition and development of housing, recreation, and commercial uses on cleared land and vacant lots. In 2001-02 the city updated its neighborhood planning approach with the collection and analysis of data on neighborhood conditions, additional public workshops to develop neighborhood actions plans, and the presentation of the plan to a Neighborhood Cabinet made up of department heads and appropriate staff from a variety of agencies who make specific commitments to implement portions of the plan.

Portland links its vacant properties strategy with city and regional growth planning and affordable housing goals. The Portland Development Commission (PDC), the city’s urban redevelopment agency, assembles individual abandoned properties for redevelopment purposes in certain instances. The city acquires the properties, which may include brownfields sites, and posts an RFP to nonprofit and for-profit developers. The PDC Housing Department uses the RFP process to ensure that public funds achieve the maximum public benefit and provide equal access for all applicants. A city resolution guides the RFP criteria and reinforces (1) the public policy targets for affordable housing, and (2) the allocation of federal and city funding by income level for rental, home ownership, and home buyer programs. The PDC also posts RFPs for preservation and redevelopment of expired federal Section 8 properties.