Housekeeping. First, if your friends missed it or you want to rewatch it, it will be posted online at the event page at the same place. You can hide or add captions on the live transcript button in the zoom feature bar at this button. Speaker bios are online. You will be muted throughout the duration of the event but we want to get your engagement. There is a q a box at the bottom. We would love for you to ask questions and well try to filter them into the panel we will be having at the second half of the event. We will also send out a survey because we want to get better at structuring these events. Hope you can complete that. I want to start by framing us and walk us through some data and level set us and get us on the same page in the federal role. We have had a long and winding road of federal support for placebased development over the years. Some more prominent in their design and implementation, some long, some shortterm and a little more challenging or outright negative. We have also seen some steady and secular declines in Community Development spending over time. An exception being, not shown here, recent stimulus increases. At the same time, when we adjust for inflation, we see a steady rise in support. Indeed, the federal role use to represent a bigger share of local spending than it does now. We are creating over time and decades a situation where cities more and more have to stand on their own in supporting their economic and Community Development. What that means is we are seeing bill disparities in capital flows across the city. Here are the top 50 cities. Just to pick two starting with the d. Denver is over 5x the average annual total of capital flows per household that it is going into. Another city starting with d, detroit. Some real disparities we see across the u. S. When we are trying to understand why that is and what is going on, there are a lot of reasons. One of them is simply size. Being bigger is more likely to get more investment, even on a per capita basis. Here is association of city size. Another dimension that is very big in our country as well is race. We see in particular that a citys composition, of percentage of black, is very negatively associated with. Hispanic and latino is less of a linear relationship and more of a curvy relationship. All of that is a backdrop that is affecting the regional economy, the city economy, and a neighborhood economy. What does placebased work actually look like . What does this theme with in a place . The answer of course, as you already know, is the disparities we see across cities absolutely manifest themselves within city. Here is a look at memphis for may recent report we did. You can see downtown here and you see where investment is most concentrated in the city, kind of radiating central and east. This is total investment. And, for context, one core of it or even a cause, here is a map demonstrating racial concentration in this. What you can see is a very direct correspondence between where investment is going into memphis and the racial composition. It is not just memphis. Here is a look at chicago. This is the volume of Single Family lending, very concentrated in the north and northwest parts of the city. And we look, again, here is a distributional map by race, ethnicity and you can see the roadmapping of these to know attributes of these two attributes. For those of you familiar with baltimore, here is a different aspect of class. You have Small Business lending. Here we have a role concentration of investment to the north and northwest. And around the harbor. And a very direct relationship to where a greater share of people live in the city where there is a role hollowing out of investment in some of the neighborhoods with a higher share of resident who are black in the sections of the city. All of this is framing and setting up a placebased conversation. A question that i have had over several years that we have been answering in different ways is can mission lending and federal investment and the Public Sector, state and local, fill these gaps . We have established there are serious gaps in the markets ability to provide capital equitably across paces places but can the public softer fill that role . Here is a study we did on chicago, looking at measured income and poverty. In other core like race, looking at where investment is going. We can see low poverty neighborhoods getting 4x the lending of high poverty neighborhoods. What is the federal Public Sector able to do you . The answer is much more investment is going into high poverty neighborhoods than low poverty neighborhoods so we are getting aggressive redistribution a look we would hope to see in the Public Sector. But what happens when we put these together . The answer is we do have the progressivity of the mission and federal Public Sector investment but the context is it just does not come close to evening out the 30s that we the disparities that we see between high poverty and low poverty neighborhoods. Bottom line, the federal Public Investment is helping but by and large is going where it is needed and yet they are not coming close to overcoming the disparities we see in these crises. When we add this all up, we can see a lot of singlefamily investment. This is nonresidential or multifamily investment. The federal role is smaller. Here is another example, looking at fresno. An even smaller share in investment in fresno is coming from public sources. This is the take away that we need federal support and robustly but we also need it to be welldesigned. A cautionary tale we have been doing a lot of research on his opportunities where we see a real disconnect between what investors are looking for and the missionbased projects the need for missionbased projects. At the end of the day, most projects that have a social impact or mission about them actually need other subsidies. Whether that is low income tax added or state and local tax credit to make state and local missions happen. It is the case that sometimes we make bigger mess. Sometimes in particular places we are able to do more, not just one newmarket project, not just one opportunity project. But, we are really able to see the Public Sector play that role to fill the gap and make the neighborhood economy look on the order of what might be achieved by market actors in more middle income neighborhoods. There are some examples. We are going to hear about some of them today. What happens if we do these kinds of data . Here are three that i have been researching and publishing about in east lake and atlanta. With the Development Initiative in baltimore and the hype initiative in san diego. One thing to know is how long are . This is just focused on a narrow section of a neighborhood. Then we look at the investment. We are talking about half 1 billion to 1 billion of investment were a single focus of neighborhoods are getting the investment and a whole range of activities being put together. When we talk about placebased development, this is that. This is actually not just doing a project and that still has merit, but this is aiming to achieve placebased transformation. Yet, it is still challenging to do. Here is impact analysis. For the east lake example, showing in effect over time of income. There are different measures so do not think this is the only one. For the baltimore example, not evidence in the same way so other effects work. Similarly for the san diego example. So, the conclusion is there are some takeaways the conclusion or some takeaways is that revitalization is challenging and requires a lot of money. The mainstream Market Capital is this. If we are going to be developing neighborhoods, we need to think deeply because that is what the market does. 1 billion for each neighborhood but if we have thousands of neighborhoods across the country that you that kind of investment, what is that mean in line of streaking federal investment over time . It does require a longterm time commitment. For every neighborhood we are investing into, two or three decades, helping people is hard. Some will need help with finances or health or employment or other dimensions. We have some Program Models but also a lot of failures if we are honest. Sometimes there is a default to what you will change the build to. Those are very easy in some ways. It is hard because you have to get the money together but they are easier in some ways. We have questions and challenges about what shares in cities need to return to justify an initiative. For example in baltimore, i talked about. Atlanta, we are going to hear about. Is only one quarter or a third of people who live in neighborhoods are coming back, is that sufficient . What is the right answer in terms of relocation that is sufficient . Even apart from relocation, people are moving constantly. We did research that show over half of people in low income neighborhoods, especially higher rental neighborhoods have moved within a few years. It may be that people are attempting and tending to help there. Are lots of challenges and questions we have to grapple through for a perspective of our theories of change. Sometimes we try to little and we do not succeed in connecting markets neighborhoods to Market Capital and the Public Sector cannot go on forever in providing support. Sometimes the opposite. We are too successful. You have gotten the market connected the neighborhood connected to the Market Capital but we have not preserved enough and now we are running into challenges. All these challenges will be made clear by the panel and by congressman himes. I am going to just pass it off to urban institutes president. Sarah helped design these programs before in her tour of duty at the white house so sarah, i would love for you to walk us through how it is that the federal role can play a productive space. Sarah thank you brett. Thank you for your work in europe terrific work and your terrific effort to bring to a very complicated set of conversations. I am excited that i get to have a conversation with another person who has dedicated his career to helping improve neighborhoods. Congressman jim himes is in his seventh term as a member of congress from connecticut. He started his career from the finance sector but became really passionate about access to housing for low and moderate income communities. Full disclosure, i am a very proud member of that organization. At enterprise, he oversaw the financing of construction of thousands of portable Housing Units in the reader new york metro area. That experience motivated his involvements of politics or serving in the commission, becoming an elected member of the town finance board, setting a budget policy for the city and led to his run for on breast rated he is his run for congress. He now sits on two committees. One of them is the select committee on economic disparity and fairness in growth. Where he led the committee in a whole series of hearings and conversations about what the right strategies are to try to try to tackle the growing disparity in prosperity opportunities in places. We are really excited that he has joined us to talk about what congress has learned. There are going to talk about place and hear from fabulous people who are making really great efforts in places to make a difference for those residents. We are going to try to think about how does the dynamic there relate to what the feds are doing . We tend to spend a loss of our time in looking at opportunities like newmarket tax credits and how can we improve programs but i think it is worth taking a moment to step back and reflect beyond that to the bigger ideas. What is the kind of role and what is the mission of the federal government in helping these places take off . We have limited time. Congressman, i wanted to start by inviting you to reflect on the work of the committee and how you think about the placebased dimensions of economic disparity and the lack of opportunity. So many of these very richly to very racial and income i stated communities. Rep. Himes nvition to participate in this. It is very timely. Toward the end of the committee, we are thinking a lot about what we are going to report back to congress and how we are going to do that. This is really critical stuff. The map really says it all. The committee was formed because arguably this is the point in history within which we see by most measures staggering economic disparity. That is an easy thing to stay and hides an awful lot of economic factors in it. There has obviously been substantial growth over the generation but we are seeing now sort of divide spy however you want to do it, we are seeing a level of economic disparity that is unprecedented. It is not just an economic or moral problem thats a political problem. I will not get too much into it beyond the scope of our conversation about our politics are on fire, partly because two many people partly because too many people feel like they have a stake in the system. That is a deeply embedded value for americans. Too many people are arriving at the conclusion that it is a fantasy. Placebased becomes important and im going to back out of this because i also think people. Place is just a legally designated patch of dirt. That is really important because people do live in communities. But people are also important too in terms of investing. Sometimes i worry that if we only think about dollars going into neighborhoods or geographies that we are not doing the hard work of thinking about dollars going into a geography, if they are not accompanied by those dollars that invest in the social capital, the personal capital, the education and the job training, you run the risk of getting a lot of buildings and businesses that employ people from elsewhere. It is a fascinating question. It is funny. It is like the fractal diagrams. What you see nationally is repeated at the block level. I represent one of the most affluent communities in connecticut but embedded is a city which has dire poverty in certain neighborhoods. Really thinking hard about those geography, particularly those like the ones i have seen that represent your typical western or coastal communities of affluence, you are cheek by jowl with communities that need the investment that dr. Theodos was talking about. Sarah you describe the degree of difficulty. You have been looking at the federal effort in this regard and obviously there is a lot we can do to think about how we can make all the programs were effective and stronger. What is the federal responsibility here . What do you see is the federal role given the size and pers base of this and pervasiveness of what brett was describing . Rep. Himes i think this is a really important question because in my opinion, and lets be clear, what i do know is something about what works in the south bronx and that sort of thing. I expertise comes from political challenges associated with putting together holistic efforts that are required for this stuff to work. So it is a little bit. I will tell you this, what the federal government does very well is related to its scale. We can mobilize resources that no community group, no enterprise or organization or minister pallet he can contemplate. That is really important. And, we can also serve a unique role in the transmission of best practices. I have to put a little apost rphe, because i am going to make the argument that we have to do a lot of research and to help policymakers understand what works and what does not. Frankly we do not. There are a lot of good people in energy and commerce who do but we do not. As you know, people like me to not have a solid finding in what works and what does not work, so they process shifts into a political world where this city councilmember needs this designation because it is important to city councilmember supports the mayor. We really need make the research better. Frankly, i think some of the problems with the Opportunity Zones were predictable. It is a super important question because what we do is break scale. What we do not do frankly is understand the specific communities. Even members of congress and senators, there may be neighborhoods you know but you do not know them the way a communitybased organization and faithbased organization or a city councilmember i understand the challenges and opportunities in those neighborhoods. In addition, i will make the argument that we have never quite cracked the code perfectly of how you come by the knowledge of local aspect liability. That the federal government will probably never have with the scale and a best practice of transmission of the federal government needs. Let me close with one example. In thinking about this conversation, i have an extraordinarily good staff on the select committee of economic disparity spends a lot of good time trying to figure out what examples around the country are good examples of placebased development. It is kind of funny and this is no criticism of our staff because we talk about authority and say shouldnt we hold that went up . And that was 90 years ago. What about the harlem childrens zone . What about southtown, baltimore . We do not know that and we need to have ready answers to those questions. Sarah you have come to the urban institute, virtual home here, sometimes the rules not only were research but actionable database information in the hands of the people locally who are making the decisions with the federal government providing the infrastructure and the scaling capacity to act on that information. It sounds like a pretty nice model here from where we sit. Let us talk about one of those tools you mentioned which was Opportunity Zones. As you said, maybe some of the challenges we have encountered were predictable. I think, brett has done a lot of work, even at the time to suggest the tool could be better targeted. From where you sit and what your community where committee has found, what do you think has been the extent to lift up her potential and can we make tools now Going Forward and make this a more effective tool . Rep. Himes i want to answer that question with some humility. The truth is dr. Theodos has done some research more than others of us have. I am a critic of the program frankly and others because i live in a place where there is a lot of investors and others. I have been a little concerned of the constant celebration of the richness of the turns of the returns of the opportunities. I am also a little a critic because if you think about anyplace, if you want to be a little stereo typical, there are places that are declining. There are places in stasis and then there are places that are improving. That is d