This series documents Shiffman and the Pratt Center's involvement in community planning for and in opposition to major redevelopment projects throughout New York City, primarily from the mid-1980s through the 2010s. This series includes a substantial amount of materials pertaining to the redevelopment of Lower Manhattan and Chinatown after September 11th, as well as the redevelopment of the Greenpoint and Williamsburg waterfronts through a 197a plan. Other redevelopment projects included in this series are Red Hook, the Gowanus Canal, the Atlantic Yards, and the Columbia University expansion. There are also some materials pertaining to the rebuilding of Coney Island following Hurricane Sandy. Materials in this series include strategic plans, outreach materials, meeting notes and correspondence, planning documents, evaluation forms and others.

A wide variety of housing programs and policies are documented in this series, including mutual housing and land trusts, as well as artist housing, Single Room Occupancies (SROs), low-income home ownership and rehabilitation programs, rent regulation, and housing preservation. The majority of materials are from the early 1980s through 2010. The first sub-series includes general files on a large scope of policies and programs pertaining primarily to New York City. These topics are documented in meeting minutes, proposals, clippings, testimony, reports and correspondence.

The second sub-series includes material pertaining to specific mutual housing and land trust projects in New York City. These include Strycker's Bay, Cooper Square, Midwood Friends, the Mutual Housing Association, and the United Tenants Association.

This series includes materials about community development in Brooklyn and New York City. The first sub-series contains general research, proposals and reports about Brooklyn neighborhoods such as Bedford-Stuyvesant, the waterfront, Crown Heights, and Greenpoint. The Essex Street Market, Cooper Square and other city-wide locations are also represented. Topics addressed in these materials include Business Improvement Districts, manufacturing, small business retail, day care provision, human rights, and the establishment of the Benjamin Banneker Academy for Community Development, a New Visions high school operated by the NYC Department of Education.

The second sub-series includes project files from specific community development initiatives, for which Shiffman and the Pratt Center provided support. The majority of materials pertain to the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation. The sub-series also includes information on the Association of Neighborhood Housing Developers, and the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, as well as the re-building of New Orleans after hurricane Katrina.

The third sub-series contains the project files for Building Hope: The Community Development Corporation Oral History Project. Funded by the Ford Foundation, this project conducted interviews with leaders from nineteen Community Development Corporations across the country. In addition to project planning, financial, and outreach materials, this sub-series includes transcripts from many of the interviews conducted during this project. There is also a small amount of materials pertaining to the history of the Pratt Center. The final sub-series contains audio-visual recordings from the Building Hope oral history project.