Dorothy Mae Richardson (May 3, 1922 – April 28, 1991) was an African American community activist who is credited with introducing a new model of community development in the late 1960s when she led a resident campaign for better housing in her neighborhood on the Central North Side of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
In the mid-1960s, Richardson and her neighbors enlisted city bankers and government officials to help improve their neighborhood. Together, they convinced 16 financial institutions to give out conventional loans to the community, which were used to finance the rehabilitation of dilapidated homes. This effort laid the groundwork for the new field of community-based development and led to the founding of Neighborhood Housing Services (NHS) of Pittsburgh in 1968. The accomplishments of NHS of Pittsburgh became a resource for community leaders and led to the founding of similar programs in 300 cities across the United States. In 1978, Congress institutionalized the NHS network by establishing the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation, known today as NeighborWorks America, with its mission based on the community development efforts set forth by Richardson and her neighborhood a decade before.
Richardson was recognized as a "black urbanist" in a 2015 article on the NewGeography.com website.[1]