Why does economic inequality—as opposed to just poverty—matter? There are a lot of reasons, but a big one is that higher levels of inequality make it harder to improve your economic position. As Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen has argued,…
What are cities worth? More than big private companies, as it turns out: The value of housing in the nation’s 50 largest metropolitan areas ($22 trillion) is more than double the value of the stock of the nation’s 50 largest…
What City Observatory did this week 1. Which federal agency has a big role to play in housing affordability? The answer might surprise you. The Federal Reserve has announced a plan to increase the interest rates it charges banks, putting…
Earlier this month, we argued that Housing Choice Vouchers, also known as Section 8 vouchers, ought to be provided to every household with a qualifying income. The limited funding for vouchers today leaves millions of people—over three-quarters of those who…
At City Observatory, we’ve cataloged a series of indicators that point to the the growing economic strength of city centers—including on the metric of job growth. But in a new blog post, Jed Kolko looks at county-level data for the…