LOUISVILLE, Ky. — David Brown Kinloch could have lived elsewhere, but he chose to move into an abandoned home in a distressed Louisville neighborhood that others were leaving in droves.

In the 25 years since, Brown Kinloch has seen the Phoenix Hill neighborhood transformed from unsightly rows of vacant homes where crime flourished into a model of urban renewal. Under the stewardship of an active neighborhood association, new homes sprung up on weed-infested lots and boarded up houses were renovated. A small park and a communal vegetable garden offer green space.

“We were told that you couldn’t build new housing inside the old city of Louisville,” said Brown Kinloch, a renewable energy developer. “We proved that not only could you do it, if you made them affordable ... they’d sell right away. And they did.”

Grass-roots strategies to reclaim distressed neighborhoods are taking hold in cities across the country, including Cleveland, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Detroit. Fighting to reclaim neighborhoods blighted by blocks of decaying and neglected vacant homes, community groups and governments are working together to buy up lots, tear down buildings, create parks and court business to make neighborhoods safer and more welcoming.

But it’s an uphill battle.

More than 1.2 million residential properties went into foreclosure in 2008, according to an estimate by Alan Mallach, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution. The surge has spun off a vast inventory of bank-owned properties.

The National Vacant Properties Campaign has been part of the fight. The group offers guidance to help cities, counties and states reclaim vacant properties.

It estimates the number of chronically vacant properties is in the millions. And the short-term outlook for a drop in vacant lands is bleak, with millions more homes expected to go into foreclosure.

“There are just too many forces working in the system for anybody to expect a turnaround anytime soon,” Mallach said at a recent conference in Louisville.

Still, there are many local success stories. One initiative gaining a foothold is called Green Up Pittsburgh that converts vacant properties into green space. So far, more than 100 abandoned weed-filled lots have been turned into urban farms, community gardens and the like, with hundreds more projects planned.