CITY OF JACKSON
Ideas Into Action. Data to Impact.
Featured Neighborhood Beautification
More than 200 residents and volunteers joined forces to advance neighborhood beautification across South and West Jackson.
In June and July 2026, Jackson residents demonstrated what is possible when community pride is supported by coordinated City action. The Jackson Rising Corridor Clean Up Series, in partnership with the Innovation Team, mobilized more than 200 residents and volunteers across four cleanup days in South and West Jackson. Together, participants removed more than 300 bags of litter while building stronger connections among neighborhoods, faith communities, local organizations, and City government.
The Innovation Team helped transform the idea into action by assessing priority corridors, developing the volunteer registration process, creating event branding and outreach materials, coordinating supplies, and supporting implementation across City departments. The two June events alone engaged more than 170 volunteers and brought together five City departments, 12 churches, neighborhood associations, and community organizations.
The impact extends far beyond the number of bags collected. The series improved corridor conditions, strengthened community pride, and demonstrated that residents can play a leading role in neighborhood beautification when they have the tools, partnerships, and support to act.
Building on this momentum, the Innovation Team is applying lessons from the cleanup series to expand resident-led beautification efforts through neighborhood partnerships, microgrants, and the Adopt-a-Block initiative. The goal is to turn successful cleanup days into lasting neighborhood stewardship—one block at a time.
The Corridor Clean Up Series created a repeatable model for resident-led neighborhood beautification. The results are helping Jackson move from one-time cleanup events toward sustained community ownership and long-term neighborhood improvement.
Four cleanup days. More than 200 residents and volunteers. One growing model for neighborhood beautification and community stewardship.
Cross-department workshops surfaced more than 40 resident-sourced ideas, now prioritized into the i-team's active project queue.
Jackson secured a $1.5M LEAD grant to expand lead-service-line identification and remediation across our legacy neighborhoods.
The inaugural Green Works cohort is on the ground — putting residents to work on parks, right-of-way, and corridor clean-up.
Our first Developers Academy class began training local talent to build civic tools alongside the i-team.
Building a connected set of decision-support tools — including blight prioritization, 311 performance, and business and development intelligence — so departments can identify priorities, monitor trends, and make faster, more informed decisions.
Helping contractors become licensed, certified, and prepared to compete for larger business opportunities.
Testing targeted zoning flexibility in pilot neighborhoods — including smaller lots, accessory dwelling units (ADUs), duplexes, and small multi-unit housing — while measuring development interest, housing production, neighborhood impact, and resident response before broader adoption.
Using the Prototype & Pilot Accelerator to test a more streamlined permitting experience from resident and developer perspectives: map the end-to-end process, identify delays and unclear handoffs, and prototype simplified workflows and digital touchpoints. Site-plan review is an early opportunity to test parallel review steps instead of unnecessary sequential routing.
i-team Spotlight
Director of Planning & Development · City of Jackson
A Jackson native and Jim Hill High School graduate, Angela Brown is bringing a forward-looking vision to Planning & Development. Her leadership is helping reshape how the department plans, operates, and prepares for what Jackson needs next.
Brown is rewriting the business license process, redefining the role of code enforcement, and looking ahead at how commercial permitting can become clearer and more coordinated for businesses and developers. Her approach connects day-to-day operations with a larger vision for stronger neighborhoods, better customer experiences, and more intentional development.
That momentum reaches across the department — from economic development to Homeward Jackson, the City’s new homelessness initiative focused on helping individuals move toward housing. With a natural ability to lead and several new efforts emerging from Planning & Development, Brown is positioning the department to do more than respond to today’s challenges: she is helping it plan for Jackson’s future.
