Insights

Study for Housing Opportunities, Inc., with funding from The Heinz Endowments. This report seeks to answer critical questions regarding the low rates of African American homeownership in Southwestern Pennsylvania.

A report by the Building Industry Association of Philadelphia that proposes ten fixes to improve and streamline the development process in Philadelphia. The report aims to eliminate or change steps in the process that unnecessarily add to the cost of a home and otherwise deter developers from building or rehabilitating houses in the city.

Working paper on how some borrowers end up with subprime mortgages and the extent to which those loans serve the true financial needs of those borrowers.

Reinvestment Fund’s thorough analysis of foreclosures in Monroe County, PA’s second fastest growing county, provides the facts for State action on the crisis.

A follow-up to Flight or Fight, this agenda proposes three tangible state policy shifts that would have an immediate and significant impact on the region’s growth patterns.

This gubernatorial campaign briefing paper outlines six major workforce system reforms designed to align the Commonwealth’s billion-dollar workforce system with its economic development objectives.

This report argues that Pennsylvania needs a comprehensive performance management approach to its workforce programs so that they can be effectively evaluated and improved. The report proposes an evaluation framework and a model for an Annual Report on Pennsylvania’s Workforce Investment System.

Metropolitan Philadelphia is a place with extraordinary assets. It should be a region of choice, but it’s not. Our region has seen minimal population growth and alarmingly low job growth. What’s growing most rapidly is sprawl, and it’s hurting our region. It’s time to think differently and make some big, positive changes.

This report provides quantitative and qualitative data to forecast employer hiring needs in information technology and customer service occupations. It concludes that both these occupations cut across all industries and that the demand for these workers would continue based on favorable economic growth.

A discussion of the social and economic trends that influence poverty alleviation policies and strategies, the result of these trends, the argument that community development financial institutions (CDFIs) can be one source from which regional civic intermediaries can be created, and examples of CDFI regional intermediary roles.

A course of action for rebuilding the Philadelphia region’s real estate market while seeking more regional activity around housing affordability.

This report analyzed the demand for and supply of labor in the Philadelphia region and described the gaps that need to be addressed.

This article was first to be called “Cities Forgotten by Their Regional Economies,” but as the authors reflected more on the competitive position of distressed central cities, they realized that the title was wrong.

An in-depth study of Pennsylvania’s housing market. Providing a basis for creating the State’s housing development strategy, the report focuses on the critical issues of community stability and public investment.