Our research on cities and communities cuts across several Urban Institute specialties—housing trends, crime prevention, economic development, arts and culture, and more.
Our urban studies define much of our history, from evaluations of community development corporations in poor neighborhoods to road-tested ideas for rebuilding New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, to more recent projects helping policymakers monitor communities' progress. We also work closely with local groups to grasp and address the Washington, D.C., area's challenges. Read more.
As the federal government, localities, and housing authorities seek to revitalize scarred inner-city neighborhoods, a unique set of responses is needed to aid public housing's most vulnerable families. The Chicago Family Case Management Demonstration may have some innovative answers.
The National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership (NNIP) is a collaborative effort of the Urban Institute and local organizations in more than 30 cities that operate recurrently updated information systems with neighborhood level data and work to ensure the data will be applied effectively in policy development and community building. This collection of brief case studies describes the local partners’ successes in using neighborhood indicators to improve their communities in several areas, including neighborhood development, housing, children and schools, crime and prisoner reentry, health and service delivery.
While HOPE VI has changed the face of public housing, it has not been a solution for the most vulnerable families. The Chicago Family Case Management Demonstration, an innovative model for serving these residents, provides them with intensive family case management, along with relocation, employment, financial literacy, mental health and substance use supports. This report focuses on one of the major challenges to serving vulnerable families: identifying which clients require the full intensive services. We develop a typology that provides a template for delivering wraparound services to public and assisted housing settings, including vouchers and units integrated into mixed-income developments.
The New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) program targets debt and equity capital to businesses or organizations situated in low-income, economically distressed communities. This is a report on a diverse sample of five projects that utilized New Markets Tax Credits allocated early in the program's history. Its substantive purpose is to describe the characteristics, evolution, financial arrangements, and anticipated community impacts of the projects, while its methodological purpose is to explore the strengths and limitations of using in-depth, semi-structured telephone interviews with key project actors and stakeholders as a basis for generating data for a future evaluation of the NMTC program.
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Our research on cities and communities cuts across several Urban Institute specialties—housing trends, crime prevention, economic development, arts and culture, and more.