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Karen L. Black is the Principal of May 8 Consulting, Inc. a firm that performs policy research, development, and analysis to form innovative and creative solutions to seemingly intractable problems facing urban, suburban and/or rural communities. Ms. Black’s current projects involve creating competitive cities strategies such as increasing state and local tools to combat residential abandonment, streamlining Philadelphia’s development review process, and finding ways to leverage and renew transit as an asset in Philadelphia. In addition, Ms. Black is working with organizations throughout Philadelphia to create a pragmatic agenda to improve the city’s physical infrastructure and environment. May 8’s clients include the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, Housing Alliance of Pennsylvania, Building Industry Association of Philadelphia, Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future, 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, The Reinvestment Fund, Philadelphia Neighborhood Development Collaborative and The Women’s Community Revitalization Project. May 8’s projects are selected with the intent of informing public debate and public policy and providing needed information for resolving contemporary problems. In addition, Ms. Black teaches urban studies at the University of Pennsylvania.
Prior to beginning her consulting practice, Ms. Black was the founding director of the Metropolitan Philadelphia Policy Center, a region-wide policy center founded to research issues significant to Southeastern Pennsylvania and connect expert knowledge and other jurisdiction’s experience to regional policymakers. The Center successfully animated conversation around the challenges confronting communities within the region and produced compelling data towards the need to change and refine state land use, tax, and urban abandonment and housing policies in order to restore vibrancy to Metropolitan Philadelphia.
Ms. Black came to the Policy Center having completed a two year fellowship with Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development as a HUD Community Builder to improve HUD’s delivery of services to the region. This unique fellowship provided Ms. Black with a unique opportunity to work within government and playing an active role in reforms that HUD’s Secretary and Harvard’s experts believed were critical to the agency’s ability to serve the community.
Prior to that Ms. Black practiced law for eleven years in the area of civil rights. Ms. Black joined the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia, a non-profit, non-partisan legal organization dedicated to equal justice in 1989. She founded and directed the Housing and Police Projects at the Center. For a decade, Ms. Black pursued a well-respected legal career where she was responsible for significant reforms in the lending, rental and sales practices by numerous area property owners, real estate agents, lenders and homeowners’ insurance providers. Her work has caused entire industries to redefine their practices.
Ms. Black is the author of numerous reports and professional articles, a frequent lecturer and speaker and a commentator for television and radio programs. She received a Bachelor’s from Williams College and a Doctorate of Law from the University of California at Los Angeles.
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