The Invisible Walls series, which examines the impacts of exclusionary zoning in New Hampshire, was honored with a Publick Occurences Award from the New England Newspaper and Press Association as well as an award from Housing Action NH. 

“Invisible Walls” is a joint project of the Granite State News Collaborative, NH Business Review, Business NH Magazine and NH Public Radio that describes how exclusionary zoning laws have reinforced areas of persistent poverty, impacting many aspects of community life, including crime, public health, affordable housing and access to economic opportunity in Manchester. The team used Manchester as a case study, but the same sorts of exclusionary zoning practices present in Manchester are common across the state, and likely have had similarly-broad effects.

The edit team leading the project included Matt Mowry, editor of Business NH Magazine,  Johnny Bassett, data editor at Granite State News Collaborative, and Jeff Feingold, editor at  NH Business Review.  Editors Carol Robidoux from Manchester Ink Link as well Daniela Allee and Cori Princell from NH Public Radio also contributed input, reporting, video, audio and editing to the project. Reporters on the project include Kevin Andrade, Johnny Bassett, Kelly Burch, Judi Currie, Jeff Feingold, Nour Habib, Ryan Lessard, Gabriela Lozada, Matt Mowry and Dave Solomon. Bill Wilkinson also contributed research to this story.

According to NENPA, the Publick Occurences award recognizes the very best work that New England newspapers produce each year— whether it’s individual or team stories, series, spot news coverage, columns or photojournalism that ran in print and/or online. NENPA presents up to 16 Publick Occurrences awards to member newspapers annually. Up to eight Publick Occurrences awards are presented to daily newspapers, and up to eight  are presented to community weekly and specialty newspapers, NENPA says.

According to the judges’ comments: Granite State News Collaborative: Manchester housing project is an innovative examination of some of the underlying and rarely discussed causes of income inequality and segregation. It was more than thoroughly researched, informative, and well-written with many voices. Lively, nuanced, alert reporting and writing

The series was also honored by  Housing Action NH, a coalition of 80 organizations united around affordable housing policy, during its “Home Matters in NH Awards” at the 5th Annual Housing We Need Forum hosted by the Center for Ethics in Society at Saint Anselm College. The series was one of two awards given to media who demonstrated excellence in covering housing issues.

 You can read the entire Invisible Walls series here. 

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