Regenerative development is an emergent field of practice aimed to address escalating climate change and urbanization trends by incorporating holistic, systems thinking approaches to urban development. The intent of this study is to investigate the key principles of an iteration of regenerative development, regenerative neighborhood development (RND), and how they align with or depart from key regenerative development principles (those being principles of wholism, change, relationships) and what might explain these similarities/differences. For this paper, I examine Sweet Water Foundation, based in Chicago, Illinois, and one of the leading practitioners of RND, as a case study.

To best understand RND from a theoretical, empirical, and experiential basis, I conducted participant observation over twelve months at Sweet Water Foundation. I then extracted key themes from the qualitative data in the form of observations, field notes, reflections, and photos through thematic content analysis. I later contrasted these themes against a regenerative development evaluation framework to reveal key distinctions and similarities in core principles, and underlying assumptions, between the two development methodologies. Through its application of key regenerative development concepts at the neighborhood scale, I argue that RND incorporates and advances existing regenerative development approaches by emphasizing the locality of production and the value of place-based knowledge, culture, and subjects. However, the study also revealed differences in foundational assumptions between the two regenerative development methodologies. This study contributes to the growing literature on regenerative development and elucidates new principles of regenerative development that may better inform future urban development processes at the neighborhood scale.