Housing devaluation and job loss are the two major problems affecting America's urban areas. But as this article from Governing explains, those two problems are playing out in drastically different ways from metro to metro.
"States and localities are recovery-challenged. The problem for policymakers who would like to give states and localities a helpful push up the recovery ladder is that the troubles that bedevil those economies are not evenly distributed.
A report in March from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia indicates that states are recovering from this recession at greatly different speeds. In February, the bank's coincident index (an index that combines four state-level indicators to summarize current economic conditions in a single statistic for each state) increased in 21 states, decreased in 22 and remained unchanged in seven."
Governing's Penelope Lemov writes that the "double trouble" of job losses and home value losses are posing serious challenges for some cities, but many experts suggest focusing on jobs and letting the housing market right itself.
FULL STORY: Cities Face Double Trouble
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A fun activity in city comparison.
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Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
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City of Albany
UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
City of Piedmont, CA
Great Falls Development Authority, Inc.
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research