What is Incremental Development?
Change Doesn’t Have to Be Big to Be Transformative
Incremental development is about growing places thoughtfully—one duplex, storefront, or main street rehab at a time. It's a more human, financially sustainable alternative to large-scale development that often displaces people and drains city budgets.
Whether you're a neighbor restoring a corner building, a planner rethinking zoning, or a community leader advocating for small-scale solutions, you're part of a national shift toward more resilient, locally driven growth.
Who We Serve
Connecting the People Who Make Small Projects Happen
We support a diverse network of people who want to make their communities stronger through small, intentional development.
Aspiring Small-Scale Developers: Learn how to finance, design, and manage projects that fit your neighborhood.
City Officials & Planners: Bring incremental ideas into your policies, permitting, and public infrastructure.
Neighborhood Leaders: Advocate for zoning and investments that support people-oriented places.
Foundations & Sponsors: Fund local action and capacity-building that leads to long-term impact.
Policymakers: Back reforms that unlock small-scale solutions in your region.
Find Your Path
Aspiring Small-scale Developers
Learn how to start small and build a future.
Cities and Organizations
Bring incremental ideas to catalyze a local network.
Foundations and Sponsors
Fund the future of equitable growth.
What We Offer
Tools, Training, and community
Inc Dev grows the capacity of regular people to develop hard-working, loveable small buildings in their neighborhoods.
We offer aspiring developers training and mentorship to help them take the first steps toward their small-scale real estate development projects.
We coach civic leaders how to cultivate patient, healthy real estate development at scale accessible to locals, starting with supportive regulation.
We give you the knowledge, relationships, and momentum to turn good ideas into built work. Whether you’re just getting started or scaling your impact, our programs meet you where you are.
Membership Program: Join a national peer network and get access to events, office hours, and exclusive discounts.
Trainings & Events: From live workshops to local field trips, our programs build real-world skills and connections.
Policy Support & Industry Expert Speakers: Partner with us to bring development-ready policies, stress tests, housing toolkits, and expert speakers for public events your city.
Inc Dev trains small-scale developers and coach the cities they love.
Inc Dev is a not-for-profit Alliance of practitioners who train small developers, helping citizens strengthen their own neighborhoods and helping city champions get the kind of development their community wants.
Strong places are built at the speed of trust from the bottom up, and today's cities need systems to support that incremental development. It's messy, slow, and difficult work but we know this is how great places come to be.
That leaves us with a challenge: to build the capacity for locals to invest in their own neighborhoods, and to help institutions encourage that small-scale development. We do both.
Because we want to live in cities that bring out the best in people.
Read more about Inc Dev.
The many hands of our Alliance call different places home, from the Southeast to Mountain West, but we share a deep connection to our cities. And when you love a place, you improve it.
Inc Dev believes in the power of pulling up our sleeves, working with our neighbors, and trying to build a place so worthy of admiration you could write a song about it. We also believe in the power of small. We have seen that a few people who care can spark a lot more TLC.
A single storefront can transform a street. A loveable building can lift a whole neighborhood. We have seen this and know that no one is coming to do it for us. If we want to live in places that our kids love coming home to, we’ve got work to do.
How We Think
Read more about Inc Dev’s philosophy.
“We’re going to talk about how to do this incrementally. If you had nothing today, what could you do in your neighborhood?”
Inc Dev In Action
See examples of our work.
Through many disciplines, Inc Dev outfits neighborhoods across this continent with buildings that work. Our benchmark for a working building is one flexible, loveable, and financially sound enough to give back for generations. A working building benefits the owners, tenants, and the neighborhood by providing a financial return, quality space, and a charming presence. Small developers are perfectly positioned to deliver quality, working buildings at a neighborhood scale and our Alliance exists to help in that process. This all comes together in our work on the ground.
