The Metro Program consistently chronicles the dynamic demographic, economic, social, and cultural forces sweeping the country and interprets what these forces means for cities and metropolitan areas. Our aim is to unveil the new spatial geography of work and opportunity in the U.S. and identify the new sets of challenges and opportunities (e.g., increased suburban poverty, downtown resurgence, declining older suburbs) that have arisen.
Current Efforts
The Brookings-Rockefeller Project on State and Metropolitan Innovation is working to present fiscally-responsible state policies and practical metropolitan-led solutions that leaders can use to create a next economy that is driven by exports, powered by low carbon, fueled by innovation, rich with opportunity and led by metropolitan areas. The project is a collaboration with the Rockefeller Foundation.
The Global Cities Initiative: A Joint Project of Brookings and JPMorgan Chase will equip leaders from the 100 largest U.S. metropolitan areas with the information, policy ideas, and partners necessary to build economic partnership with their international peers and operate in today's global environment.
The Metropolitan Infrastructure Initiative, led by Senior Fellow Robert Puentes, has broadly reassessed the nation's transportation policies, providing options beyond the current hodgepodge of pet projects, to better address these critical needs.
The Metropolitan Opportunity Series documents the changing geography of poverty and opportunity in metropolitan America, analyzes its drivers and implications and offers policy recommendations to enhance the well-being of lower-income families and communities in both cities and suburbs.
The State of Metropolitan America is a signature effort of the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings that portrays the demographic and social trends shaping the nation’s essential economic and societal units—its large metropolitan areas—and discusses what they imply for public policies to secure prosperity for these places and their populations.
MetroMonitor Series The MetroMonitor is a quarterly, interactive barometer of the health of America’s 100 largest metropolitan economies. It examines trends in metropolitan-level employment, output, and housing conditions to look “beneath the hood” of national economic statistics to portray the diverse metropolitan trajectories of recession and recovery across the country. The aim of the MetroMonitor is to enhance understanding of the particular places and industries that drive national economic trends, and to promote public- and private-sector responses to the downturn that take into account metro areas’ unique starting points for eventual recovery.
The Earned Income Tax Credit Series documents the role the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and other provisions in the tax code increasingly play in delivering support to low-income workers, their families, and their communities. A refundable tax credit available to people who work but earn low incomes, the EITC encourages work, boosts wages, and helps alleviate poverty. It also represents a significant federal investment in the communities in which these workers live. This series presents a range of publications, maps, and data resources that document the use and impact of the EITC and other tax provisions at the national and local level and explore the implications of proposed changes to these policies.
The Brookings / Living Cities State and Metropolitan Prosperity Collaborative provides senior state economic development leaders with a focused forum in which to exchange experiences, effective practices, and practical advice for implementing strong state-metro partnerships in pursuit of economic growth and more widely shared opportunity in their metropolitan areas.
Advancing State and Local Reform
The Metro Program works closely with corporate, civic and political leaders to advance commonsense solutions that match the intensity of demographic and economic change. We have worked in states as diverse as Maine, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania as well as metropolitan areas as disparate as Louisville, Miami, and Minneapolis/St. Paul. Our work is driving ambitious reforms on a wide range of economic, social, and environmental policies.
Research on the Washington, D.C. region documents the economic and demographic forces shaping the capital city and its surrounding metropolitan area and makes recommendations to increase residents’ access to opportunity, support a competitive and inclusive regional economy, and promote sustainable growth patterns.
The Gulf Coast Recovery Effort documented the progress, or the lack thereof, in the region’s recovery via an annual “New Orleans Index.” The Metropolitan Policy Program worked in close collaboration with local researchers in New Orleans to compile this index through 2010. The partnership was culminated with a 2011 book containing essays on regional reform efforts. The report became a respected go-to source for government officials, private investors, philanthropic leaders, community representatives, and the media.
Great Lakes Economic Initiative describes why the Great Lakes region developed as it did and how it is positioned today to be a global economic player. It provides a candid assessment of what assets the region can build on and the challenges it must overcome. And it identifies ways that Great Lakes states can strengthen their economies through collective action. Further, it describes how and why the region is a vital contributor to the long-term economic health of the nation and how it can join with federal partners to pursue an integrated state, multi-state, and national policy agenda.
Past Projects
The Blueprint for American Prosperity was developed in advance of the 2008 presidential election as a federal roadmap for unleashing the full economic and fiscal potential of the country's metropolitan areas and helping them grow in sustainable and inclusive ways. The Blueprint asserted that the nation's ability to maintain its economic preeminence and meet the social and environmental challenges of our time depended heavily on the ability of our largest metropolitan areas to grow in healthy and vital ways.
The Metropolitan Economy Initiative sought to better understand the effects of globalization, technological change, and other forces on U.S. metropolitan areas, and to offer policy solutions that responded to those changes. We defined criteria for success in metropolitan economic development and helped metropolitan leaders understand the strengths and weaknesses of their own regional economies.
The Living Cities Census Series examined key demographic, social, and housing data to document the changing reality of the nation’s top 100 metropolitan areas. The Metro website also hosted an interactive data application that placed the top American cities and metropolitan areas in a national context and provided comparative rankings on key indicators from the Census.
The Restoring Prosperity Series was aimed at catalyzing the economic revival of struggling older industrial communities in the Northeast and Midwest, having built on successful efforts in Western Europe. Brookings conducted tailored research in collaboration with a growing network of leaders from industrial cities and worked to stimulate market generating policy reforms at the federal, state, and regional level.
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