Projects

Leading financial and development stakeholders in the United Kingdom are exploring how U.K. financial institutions can expand their capacity to effectively make place-based impact investments. This paper synthesizes lessons from…

This presentation was the basis for an Economic Mobility Roundtable discussion in Atlanta, co-hosted by the Washington Center for Equitable Growth and the New Growth Innovation Network (NGIN). The presentation addresses…

Following a detailed market analysis of the metals, machinery and equipment (MM&E) sector in the South Suburbs of Cook County (the “Southland”), this concept paper proposes an intervention to re-establish…

Researched and published with the support of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, this report from Mass Economics and RW Ventures offers insight on innovative and potentially more effective opportunities for…

ScaleUP Sacramento presents a framework and action agenda to generate inclusive economic development for the Sacramento region. Building from and supplementing existing studies of the region’s major assets and economic…

The City of Charlottesville has been increasingly confronting its history of racial inequality, spurred in part by the events during the Summer of Hate, especially on August 12, 2017. The…

The “Opportunity Corridor” is a roadway connecting Cleveland’s two most significant hubs of economic activity: downtown and University Circle. It traverses a diverse set of neighborhoods that are well-located and…

As major transitions in the global economy create new challenges and opportunities, new strategies for driving economic growth are emerging that are often broader in scope, larger-scale, more comprehensive and…

A national movement is growing to support and affect the trajectories of “middle neighborhoods” – a distinct type of neighborhood described as “on the edge between growth and decline…. where…

Economic development professionals are beginning to think differently about how they create stronger neighborhoods, cities, and regional economies. They are applying an asset- and market-based development framework, which entails “growing…

This paper was prepared as background for a convening of national experts to explore how the fields of urban planning/design and economic development can better inform each other in practice…

Building on The Changing Dynamics of Urban America, this study examines the relative importance of economic and quality of life factors in attracting and retaining college-educated workers. The project, conducted…

Developed for the June 2014 Convening on Inclusive Regional Economic Growth at the Ford Foundation, this framing paper captures findings from interviews of attendees and other leading practitioners to provide…

The “Implementing Regionalism” project, supported by the Surdna Foundation, begins to bridge the gap between the theory and practice of regional economic development through a comprehensive review of existing research…

The Dynamic Neighborhood Taxonomy (DNT) project provides new analysis on how urban neighborhoods operate, how they change over time, what factors determine their success and how these dynamics vary across…

This paper, published in the Williams Review, presents selected results from the first phase of the Dynamic Neighborhood Taxonomy Project. In particular, the paper investigates two key questions relating to…

This paper and related presentation, prepared for Opportunity Finance Network and CFED, introduce a new framework for bipartisan economic development policies, centered on the idea of “inclusionary growth”.

These two complementary papers written for the Brookings Institution’s Urban Markets Initiative examine the role of information resources in spurring markets and creating investment strategies to boost urban neighborhoods. The…

This major study, conducted with Christopher Berry for CEOs for Cities, examines the changing drivers of economic success in American cities and metropolitan areas, and how these affect decision-making for…

In planning its activities for the next decade, Living Cities commissioned RW Ventures and the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program to undertake the design phase for a ten-year project that…

This paper, co-sponsored by the Brookings Institution and the Financial Services Roundtable, led to the business planning and creation of the Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI). Originally housed at…

This study, completed for CEOs for Cities, features a data scan of economic indicators and activity in cities. The study finds that the assets of cities are enormous, varied, and…

This paper examines how current information, primarily dependent on federal data sources, fails to accurately convey the opportunity in inner-city economies. It then suggests how building business-based data and models…