At any given point in time, there are at least a few thousand job openings at anchor institutions in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Approximately half of these are entry-level positions. Normally this would be great news for a community. If jobs are plentiful, it must mean the local economy is doing well—right? Yet, it’s not that straightforward. Read More

America may be prosperous but it is not inclusive. On the one hand, the nation and its cities and metro areas are still recovering from the economic trauma of the Great Recession: Economic output is up and unemployment is down. But on the other hand, the gains from that economic recovery are disproportionately concentrated among a relatively small number of advantaged groups and advantaged places. Inclusive prosperity has proven distressingly elusive; wide swaths of cities and metros and large groups of people have missed out on the economic rebound. Read More

Buffalo, NY has tried to reinvent itself over the years with the financial support of the federal government. Yet by the early 2000s, it was still a long way from the economic engine it used to be, and many doubted the possibility of the city’s revival. In 2012, in his State of the State address, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a bold initiative, unlike any Buffalo had seen before. Read More

A few months ago, we featured a story about how the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has created a $100 million impact investing initiative redirecting funds into investment products that will not only provide monetary return, but support affordable housing, small businesses, infrastructure projects, and health and educational facilities. New York City, Washington, D.C. and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts all have similar initiatives, albeit at different scales. Read More

A study by the Economic Policy Institute released in July 2012 highlighted what St. Paul policymakers already knew too well: the region faced a massive racial disparity in unemployment rates. Approximately five percent of white residents in the metropolitan region were unemployed, versus a staggering 18 percent of black residents. In order for St. Paul and all of its residents to truly thrive in the years to come, a radical intervention was required. Read More