We believe every community can be prosperous, just, and resilient – no matter its starting point.
As Brookings Metro commemorates its 25th anniversary, we are focused on the future. We see a nation in which a diverse mix of local leaders build a more prosperous, just, and resilient future, both within their own communities and together as a network. Brookings Metro will help these leaders do their jobs and inspire nationally significant change.
Read more about Brookings Metro, our history of impact, and our commitment to partner with local leaders over the next 25 years.
The Latest
Delivering to deserts: New data reveals the geography of digital access to food in the U.S.
Navigation The rise of e-commerce services and the global COVID-19 pandemic have transformed how Americans eat. Over one-third of U.S. adults have used delivery apps to order from a restaurant or store in the past year, and online grocery spending more than quadrupled between August 2019 and November 2021. The massive growth of digital food […]
The potential—and pitfalls—of the digitalization of America’s food system
Navigation Food is a critical good in the American economy. Although the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically restructured food consumption patterns and triggered a 17% drop in food expenditures, the U.S. food service and food retailing industries still sold $1.69 trillion worth of food in 2020. It took 19.7 million workers—10.3% of all U.S. jobs—to grow, process, […]
Greater Washington’s commuters continue to choose gridlock
Over the past two years, the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted real estate markets and urban spaces in new and profound ways. Increased work-from-home has boosted demand for larger homes in suburban markets, vacancy rates in downtown offices and retail have spiked, and fewer daily commuters and more flexible work schedules have changed transportation patterns. While […]
Frontline workers were excluded from companies’ pandemic windfalls. No wonder so many are forming unions.
For the first 10 years that Michelle Eisen worked as a Starbucks barista in Buffalo, N.Y., it never occurred to her to form a union. But the COVID-19 pandemic changed everything—including her opinion of the company she had long admired. “We were tired and we were scared,” Eisen said at a Brookings event last week. […]
KEY INItiatives
Informing local and state recovery strategies in ways that link near-term resilience to longer-term economic transformation, racial equity, and economic inclusion.