The plan was developed at the request of Mayor Rahm Emanuel by World Business Chicago and a team of consultants, including RW Ventures. It begins with an overview of the necessary foundations for growth in the “next economy,” followed by an assessment of the region’s economy along five market levers that drive regional growth and a set of ten transformative growth strategies informed by this rigorous analysis. The report ends by considering potential impacts of and risks to implementation and outlining the next steps in implementation.

This report, written jointly by RW Ventures and Innovation Network for Communities, explores opportunities for Chicago-area firms arising from the increasing market demand for energy- and resource-efficient products and services. The first part of the report describes the project’s cluster approach, outlining the theory behind cluster-driven economic growth and identifying the particular criteria used to select promising clusters for the project. Using these criteria, the report narrows from many green sectors of opportunity to the one–energy efficient lighting–ultimately chosen to illustrate green cluster development. The second part of the report digs deeper into the energy efficient (EE) lighting sector, providing an overview of the industry and its current trends and dynamics. The report ends with recommendations for development of Chicago’s EE Lighting sector as well as strategies for regional green economic development more broadly. Also available for download are an executive summary of the report produced by Metropolis Strategies and a copy of Bob Weissbourd’s presentation based on the report.

This short slide deck was created in response to a presentation by Joe Cortright at CEOs for Cities Fall 2011 Meeting concerning metrics of city vitality. Highlighting the importance of determining the right information resources for the particular purpose, the presentation compares the City Vitals framework with the Metropolitan Business Planning framework, and recommends factors of the regional economy for practitioners to think about.

RW Ventures’ analysis of the impact of foreclosures on neighborhood property values has garnered attention from civic sector stakeholders. Bob Weissbourd and Michael He presented the findings of the firm’s work for the Cook County Assessor’s office in addresses to both the National League of Cities’ Community and Economic Development Committee and the City of Milwaukee’s Community Economic Development Committee.

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 different types of neighborhoods. In doing so, the project also created a new generation of analytic tools for businesses, investors, funders, governments and community development practitioners to use in better targeting investments and interventions in urban communities. The findings and tools from this major three-year collaborative project, sponsored by Living Cities, are detailed in an Executive Summary, Report and Appendices.

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 different types of neighborhoods. In doing so, the project also created a new generation of analytic tools for businesses, investors, funders, governments and community development practitioners to use in better targeting investments and interventions in urban communities. The findings and tools from this major three-year collaborative project, sponsored by Living Cities, are detailed in an Executive Summary, Report and Appendices.

This presentation, prepared for the Aspen Institute Roundtable and Funders’ Exchange on Community Change, Poverty Reduction and Prosperity Promotion, presents a new framework for thinking about neighborhood change, as well as a new set of findings from the Dynamic Neighborhood Taxonomy project.

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 the dynamics of neighborhood change: the extent to which change in housing prices at the neighborhood level is driven by change in the region, and the extent to which neighborhoods tend to converge over time.

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 different types of neighborhoods. In doing so, the project also created a new generation of analytic tools for businesses, investors, funders, governments and community development practitioners to use in better targeting investments and interventions in urban communities. The findings and tools from this major three-year collaborative project, sponsored by Living Cities, are detailed in an Executive Summary, Report and Appendices.

The Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program hired RW Ventures and Alen Amirkhanien to complete a preliminary assessment of Kansas City’s economy in the context of the Heartland region. This study scans key aspects of Kansas City’s economy to identify growth opportunities worth examining further. The research focused in particular on four strategic areas that affect economic performance: industry composition, functional and occupational concentrations, knowledge and innovation, and regional connectivity.

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