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Opportunity Zones (OZs) have emerged as a significant tool in driving investment into underdeveloped areas, offering a compelling case for their continuation and expansion. Since their inception in 2017, OZs have attracted nearly $100 billion in private capital, according to the Economic Innovation Group (EIG).

These investments have catalyzed the creation of more than 500,000 jobs, demonstrating their efficacy as a tool for economic development. Notably, multifamily housing developments have accounted for a substantial portion of these projects, addressing the nation’s 7-million-person housing shortage. As of early 2024, a full 20% of multifamily units under construction were located in Opportunity Zones. By bridging financing gaps, OZs have enabled the construction of thousands of units that might not have been built otherwise.

As we have written before, the U.S. is witnessing a period of rapid re-industrialization.

Perhaps no industry is more prominent in the United States’ nascent industrial resurgence than semiconductor manufacturing. Semiconductors are ubiquitous, powering everything from consumer electronics to advanced industry. They are also central to national security, earning a place on the Department of Defense’s list of Critical Technology Areas.

As states, cities, metropolitan areas and rural communities wrestle with the implications of the 2024 elections, Opportunity Zones have emerged as a core pillar of what might come next in housing and economic development.

Opportunity Zones emerged as a little-known provision of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. Focused on attracting private investment to distressed communities, the incentive allows people or corporations to defer taxes on capital gains if they park those gains in qualified Opportunity Funds that target their investments to state-designated Opportunity Zones.  If investors stay in a Fund for 10 years, any additional gains from Fund investments are also exempt from taxes on the capital appreciation.

This article was originally published by the Financial Times on November 22, 2024

Over the past twenty years, I’ve had the chance to observe a remarkable experiment in urban governance reform: England’s efforts to devolve more power to local decisionmakers through metro mayors, creating, in essence, a new layer of government in England.

A version of this article first appeared in Governing Magazine on October 31, 2024

The accelerating pace of generative AI is driving a more physical economic revolution, one that goes deeper than digital chatbots enhancing worker productivity. This opens the door for transformation in cities that embrace its potential.

“Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.” So famously said Bette Davis’ character in the classic 1950 movie All About Eve.  Replace “night” with “four years” and we just begin to have a sense of what Tuesday’s election means for the world and our nation.

The election of Donald Trump and the return of one-party rule to Congress has once again ushered in a period of volatility and uncertainty for US cities and metropolitan areas, the places that house the bulk of our population, generate the preponderance of our GDP and drive the accelerating pace of technological innovation.

As exemplified by Trump’s early Cabinet appointments, these globally significant places are about to experience an unprecedented set of shocks, some aired during the election, many not. To withstand what’s coming, and even take advantage of the disruption, cities and metropolitan areas, individually and collectively, will need to organize themselves in equally unprecedented ways.

The time for housing deliberation is over; the time for housing action has begun.

With that simple mandate, the National Housing Crisis Task Force today released From Crisis to Transformation: A Federal Housing Policy Agenda.

Treating the housing crisis like a crisis means the federal government must fundamentally restructure the way it is organized, substantially boost the production and preservation of housing, and take bold action to provide a housing safety net. Taken together, the Task Force’s recommended actions will reduce regulatory barriers and provide sufficient support and incentives to produce more than 750,000 new housing units per year, protect and preserve our existing housing stock, and create the institutions necessary to fundamentally transform the housing sector for the twenty-first century.

As we’ve written before, the U.S. is in the midst of a monumental effort to revive its industrial economy. This transition is resulting in new opportunities and a new industrial geography that is shifting power away from long-dominant “superstar cities” towards cities and metros with a propensity for industrial production. This New Economic Order is being shaped by the need to remilitarize, reshore, and decarbonize the economy, leading to a surge in domestic production across the country.

This month, the US Department of Defense (“DOD”) released two signature documents that remind us of the outsized effect that defense industrial spending has on state and metro economies and the extent to which the defense industrial base is dependent upon smart state and local action.

This is the fourth and last in a series of initial policy newsletters being produced alongside the National Housing Crisis Task Force, which will soon release a national policy agenda with recommendations that the federal government can implement to address our housing crisis . The Task Force, an ambitious, two-year project to bring the most promising innovations in housing production, preservation, and finance to communities across the country, was launched in July by the Nowak Metro Finance Lab at Drexel University and Accelerator for America (AFA). If you want to make sure you receive all updates and reports from the Task Force, please register here.

This is the third in a series of policy newsletters being produced alongside the National Housing Crisis Task Force, which will release a national policy agenda with recommendations that the federal government can implement to address our housing crisis later this month. The Task Force, an ambitious, two-year project to bring the most promising innovations in housing production, preservation, and finance to communities across the country, was launched in July by the Nowak Metro Finance Lab at Drexel University and Accelerator for America (AFA). If you want to make sure you receive all updates and reports from the Task Force, please register here.

The National Housing Crisis Task Force, in collaboration with the Bipartisan Policy Center will be co-hosting an event in-person and online, on October 24, 2024 at 10:00 a.m. EDT. Please register for the event, Scaling Local Innovations for Achieving Housing Affordability, here.