ICIC’s research helps public, private, nonprofit, and community leaders understand and respond to the community and economic development challenges facing under-resourced communities—urban and suburban areas of concentrated poverty and low income. Our unique knowledge of these communities’ strengths and challenges is developed from path-breaking research, consulting and practice. Our research agenda has positioned ICIC as the leading and most trusted resource on under-resourced communities and their economies.

Since ICIC was founded in 1994, some of the challenges facing under-resourced communities have persisted, including high unemployment, low wages, underinvestment, and systemic racism. At the same time, increasing concentration of poverty, gentrification, suburbanization of poverty, growing income inequality and income segregation, and expanded immigration have changed the face of concentrated poverty, creating new challenges for community and economic development. These changes necessitate a mix of proven and new solutions that are tailored to the needs of individual communities.

Our Research Areas

• Community & Economic Development
• Small Business & Entrepreneurship
• Industries & Clusters
• Anchor Initiatives
• Program Evaluation
• COVID-19 impacts on under-resourced communities and small businesses.

Our Guiding Principles

• We emphasize solutions that create and improve businesses and jobs and generate wealth.
• We highlight the strengths as well as the challenges of under-resourced communities and show how the strengths can be used to address the challenges.
• We believe that development in under-resourced communities should make the current residents of those communities better off economically and socially and reflect their priorities.
• We work to identify and break down systemic and structural barriers facing residents and businesses to help close the racial wealth gap.
• We develop analyses and solutions that are customized for individual communities and stakeholders.

Recent Research Projects

AI in Business: How Small Business Owners Are Learning, Using, and Navigating Challenges with AI Tools (Report, 2025). This report, supported by Intuit, explores the opportunities and challenges that artificial intelligence (AI) presents for small businesses across the United States.

Structural Barriers to Small Business Success (Interactive Tool, 2024). This tool, created in partnership with Small Business Majority and with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, highlights the effects of structural racism on the business landscape.

Racial Equity in America’s New Industrial Transformation (Report, 2024). This report examines Black- and Hispanic-owned manufacturers in major supply chains that will benefit from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, CHIPS and Science Act, and Inflation Reduction Act.

Regional Economic Connectivity: A Strategy to Build Opportunity in Distressed Communities (Report, 2024). This report by ICIC and SRI describes regional economic connectivity as an economic development strategy for under-resourced communities.

Industrial and Non-Industrial Jobs and Land Use in Saint Paul, MN (Report, 2024). This study, sponsored by the Saint Paul Port Authority, examines industrial land use in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and its continued importance in the city’s economy.