SPOTLIGHT: Demographics
Reuters/Rick Wilking - Banners are displayed downtown for the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver.
William H. Frey and Ruy Teixeira, August 19, 2008
Long viewed as a GOP stronghold, the Intermountain West states have recently elected a number of Democrats in statewide races. In this analysis of what they term “the new swing region,” William Frey and Ruy Teixeira crunch the demographic and voting numbers to determine which voters where will decide the 2008 presidential contest in Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Arizona.
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Demographics, U.S. Politics, Regions and States, Elections
SPOTLIGHT: Competitiveness
Reuters - The skyline of Denver, Colorado against a Rocky Mountain backdrop.
Robert E. Lang, Andrea Sarzynski and Mark Muro, July 20, 2008
In this report, the authors describe and assess the new supersized reality of the Intermountain West and proposes a more helpful role for the federal government in empowering regional leaders’ efforts to build a uniquely Western brand of prosperity that is at once more sustainable, productive, and inclusive than past eras of boom and bust.
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Competitiveness, Regions and States
SPOTLIGHT: Concentrated Poverty
Denis Tangney - A low-income neighborhood in Holyoke, Massachusetts
Elizabeth Kneebone and Alan Berube, August 08, 2008
After dramatic declines in concentrated poverty in the 1990s, the number of low-income workers and families living in high-working-poverty neighborhoods rose by a striking 41% in the first half of this decade, according to a new report from the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program. The report's authors draw on data from the IRS to measure the change in rates of “concentrated working poverty” nationally and in many of the largest metropolitan areas across the country.
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Concentrated Poverty, Working Poor, Earned Income Tax Credit, U.S. Poverty, Inequality
SPOTLIGHT: New Orleans
Istock/Natalia Bratslavsky - Hotels and casinos on the Mississippi River at sunset
Amy Liu and Allison Plyer, August 2008
Greater New Orleans approaches the end of its third year of recovery from a position of strength having regained the vast majority of its pre-storm population and jobs. But many recovery trends have slowed or stagnated in the past year as tens of thousands of blighted properties, lack of affordable housing for essential service and construction workers, and thin public services continue to plague the city and region. A strong federal-state-local partnership must continue to further the hard work of recovery, which is now well underway.
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New Orleans, Natural Disasters, Cities, Community Development
BLUEPRINT FOR AMERICAN PROSPERITY
Focused Images Photography/Lynn Dykstra - Bruce Katz, vice president and director of the Metropolitan Policy Program, addresses the crowd at the Summit for American Prosperity
June 11, 2008
The opening dinner of the Summit for American Prosperity featured remarks by metropolitan leaders and a keynote address by Michael Porter, author and a professor at Harvard Business School.