Redefining the challenges facing metropolitan America and promoting innovative solutions to help communities grow in more inclusive, competitive, and sustainable ways.
On June 28, the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program hosted the first in a series of forums to highlight ways the federal government can help bolster the economic assets of the Great Lakes Region. The forum showcased the innovative and exciting efforts currently underway to boost the economic competitiveness of this vital region - such as technology, innovation, and environmental stewardship - and offered federal policy recommendations designed to foster the Great Lake Region's continued growth as a vital economic engine for the nation in the years ahead.
Kentucky's working families frequently pay a premium for everyday necessities. Lower-income workers there are more likely to pay more for home loans, auto loans, car insurance, basic financial services, and home goods. However, through a combination of initiatives that bring down business costs, curb unscrupulous behavior, and boost consumer knowledge, public and private leaders can bring down these prices, creating up to thousands of dollars in extra family spending power.
Aging baby boomers constitute this decade's fastest growing age group, expanding nearly 50 percent in size from 2000 to 2010. This group-more highly educated, with more professional women, and more diverse than its predecessors —will add new stresses to suburban and Sun Belt locations where they are predominantly "retiring in place" with demands for health, transportation, and other services.
Twenty-one months after Katrina, New Orleans continues to repopulate even as the advent of hurricane season triggers intensified evacuation planning and concern. Though local matching funds requirements for federal infrastructure aid have been dropped, substantial recovery obstacles remain, including the budget shortfall of the Road Home program, delayed city redevelopment plans, and skyrocketing insurance rates.
This report aims to mobilize governors and legislative leaders, as well as local constituencies, behind an asset-oriented agenda for reinvigorating the market in the nation's older industrial cities. The report begins with identifications and descriptions of these cities-and the economic, demographic, and policy "drivers" behind their current condition-then makes a case for why the moment is ripe for advancing urban reform, and offers a five-part agenda and organizing plan to achieve it.
As we approach the 2008 presidential election, Bruce Katz argues that the United States needs a national agenda—a Blueprint for National Prosperity—to give cities and metros the rules and the tools to leverage their economic strengths, grow in environmentally sustainable ways, and build a strong, diverse, and resilient middle class.
Robert Puentes' presentation as part of Asheville, North Carolina's Downtown Association Speaker Series provided an overview of broad trends affecting growth and development in metropolitan areas nationwide, highlighted the effect of these trends on Asheville's quality of place, and discussed the building blocks for strong cities and healthy metros.
We studied 302 cities and found Canton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dayton, Mansfield, Springfield, Warren and Youngstown among 65 cities that are underperforming compared to their peers nationwide. Most of these cities - and their metropolitan areas - are struggling to make a successful transition from an economy based on routine manufacturing to one based on more knowledge-oriented activities. Nothing new, right? Well, not quite.
What do western Louisville and the Appalachian region have in common besides being two of the poorest areas in Kentucky? Not much one would think. And, yet, they each are also among the most expensive places to live in the state.
For all of Connecticut's affluence, its economic performance in recent years has been lackluster at best. According to a recent report by the Connecticut Economic Resource Center, the state has fallen far behind in job growth and entrepreneurialism, population growth is slow and young professionals are leaving. Given its research findings, this same report is adamant that "dynamic and vibrant cities" are vital to sustainable economic growth in the state.
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