Projects

This presentation outlines the theoretical framework for market-based community economic development, including a discussion of how market-based strategies work and when they are most effective. The presentation also provides examples…

This document is the culmination of an innovative, two-year effort to develop an integrated and mutually reinforcing set of strategies and initiatives to drive growth in four contiguous Chicago neighborhoods:…

Chicago TREND (Transforming Retail Economics of Neighborhood Development) combines innovative predictive analytics, deal brokering and financial products to support “retail on the leading edge” of emerging neighborhood markets. The new…

Prepared for the Chicago Federal Executive Board, this presentation assesses the nation’s progress over the last 50 years and suggests a new framework for winning the “War on Poverty.” Finding…

Chicago TREND (Transforming Retail Economics of Neighborhood Development) combines innovative predictive analytics, deal brokering and financial products to support “retail on the leading edge” of emerging neighborhood markets. The new…

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…

This slide deck, presented at the 2014 CEOs for Cities National Meeting, highlights the economic imperative, and offers a framework, approach, analysis and examples for better achieving both prosperity and…

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…

Bob Weissbourd delivered these remarks as part of the “Connecting to Markets” series sponsored by the Institute for Comprehensive Community Development, the Urban Institute, and the Federal Reserve Banks of…

This presentation, delivered by Bob Weissbourd to the Economic Development Foundations Working Group of Cook County, provides an overview of how the different pieces of the economy fit together and…

The Metropolitan Business Planning initiative, co-developed by The Brookings Institution and RW Ventures, continues to generate great interest at the local, state and federal levels. Bob Weissbourd has been presenting…

Prepared in partnership with the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program for “Global Metro Summit 2010: Delivering the Next Economy,” this policy brief formally introduces the concept of metropolitan business planning,…

This speech and accompanying PowerPoint were delivered by Bob Weissbourd as part of the Portland Plan — Inspiring Community Series. The speech begins to tie together the various pieces of…

This concept paper, reporting on a project collaboratively developed by RW Ventures and O-H Community Partners, offers recommendations for catalyzing the emergence of a large-scale market in building energy efficiency…

This presentation, prepared for CEOs for Cities’ annual meeting, explores some of the key findings that have emerged from the literature on the role of cities in the national economy…

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 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…

Prepared by Kansas City Neighborhood Alliance and Bob Weissbourd (when at Shorebank Advisory Services, Inc.), this Start-Up Business and Implementation Plan describes a project to open a loan production office…