A look back at Metropolitan Policy’s 2015

As 2015 comes to a close, we thought we’d take a quick look back at highlights of the Metropolitan Policy Program’s efforts to improve cities and metropolitan areas by creating an economy that works for more people and places.

The year saw a number of important projects that helped leaders understand what drives success in metropolitan areas and how to bolster those assets. They included:

• Advanced industries analyzed these STEM and R&D driven fields, where they’re succeeding in the United States, and the role they play in supporting innovation, worker well-being, and regional economic growth.
•  “Beyond College Rankings,” examined how two- and four-year colleges themselves contribute to economic outcomes for their graduates.
• Ten years following Hurricane Katrina, “Opportunity clusters: Identifying pathways to good jobs in metro New Orleans” provided local leaders insight into which industry clusters have the most potential to help workers without four-year degrees join the middle class.
• Our work on freight mobility informed a new National Freight Strategy, and we took a detailed look at broadband Internet access by race, place, and income, and some ways to address the digital divide.
• The Global Cities Initiative, a joint project of Brookings and JPMorgan Chase, continued to examine ways cities and metro areas can effectively tap into the global market to boost their local economies. Analyses last year included Detroit, Washington, D.C., Stockholm, and Johannesburg.
• Finally, through projects like the “Global Metro Monitor,” a new analysis of the distance between people and jobs and its opportunity implications, all the follow up to “Diversity Explosion,” and new lessons from  the Project on State and Metropolitan Innovation, we provided leaders with essential data on the economic and demographic changes that inform strategic decision making in metropolitan America.

Best wishes for a safe holiday season and success in the new year.