Why cities matter in an age of accelerations (Amy Liu, Brookings)

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2016/12/22/why-cities-matter-in-an-age-of-accelerations/

Priorities for the Trump administration: Mayors speak on trade, immigration, and economic opportunity (Amy Liu, Adrianna Pita, Brookings)

https://www.brookings.edu/podcast-episode/priorities-for-the-trump-administration-mayors-speak-on-trade-immigration-and-economic-opportunity/

Mayors weigh in on Trump’s proposed deportation of immigrants (Amy Liu, Brookings)

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2016/11/21/mayors-weigh-in-on-trumps-proposed-deportation-of-immigrants/

Inclusive Growth Depends on Cities (Lamia Kamal-Chaoui, Amy Liu, Project-Syndicate)

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/cities-inequality-inclusive-growth-by-lamia-kamal-chaoui-and-amy-liu-2016-11

Four trends from state and local elections (Nathan Arnosti, Amy Liu, Brookings)

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2016/11/11/four-trends-from-state-and-local-elections/

Prioritizing job quality (Amy Liu, Brookings)

The field of social change is filled with diverse sets of strategies to reduce poverty and close disparities by race, place and income. While there are no silver bullet solutions to these multidimensional challenges, there is one area that deserves increased attention: job quality.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/prioritizing-job-quality/

Remarks by Amy Liu at the Global Cities Summit (Amy Liu, Brookings)

Good morning! We’re here today to reflect and build on five years of a project that many of you in this room know well: the Global Cities Initiative.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/remarks-by-amy-liu-at-the-global-cities-summit/

The making of global cities: Stories from the Global Cities Exchange (Rachel Barker, Amy Liu, Marek Gootman, Brookings)

Over the last two years, enterprising software engineers and coders representing a dozen startups hailing from as far as Ireland, Brazil, and Germany have arrived in Des Moines, Iowa, for a 100-day sprint to take their innovations to market. Organized by the region’s Global Insurance Accelerator, these entrepreneurs are equipped with $40,000 in seed capital and trained in sales, business development, marketing, and other business essentials. Insurance carriers, who each invested $100,000 in the accelerator, serve as mentors and experts, providing real-world insights while also getting a first look at emerging startups and innovations. Participants conclude the program by pitching their ideas to the hundreds of industry leaders from around the world that attend Des Moines’ annual Global Insurance Symposium.

https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-making-of-global-cities-stories-from-the-global-cities-exchange/

Tracking economic growth, prosperity and inclusion in US metros (Amy Liu, Brookings)

https://www.brookings.edu/2016/08/02/tracking-economic-growth-prosperity-and-inclusion-in-us-metros/

Oregon Primary: What the winners need to know about the regional economy (Amy Liu, Brookings)

Oregon’s primary elections today provide voters the chance to select their preferred candidates not just for president, but for leaders at every level of government, including a new mayor in Portland. In an election season defined by voter anger and disillusionment with the establishment, there are undoubtedly many Oregonians heading to the polls today who seek a fresh start and new set of strategies for economic prosperity. But our Metro Monitor suggests that Portland’s economy is not broken. Since the recession, greater Portland has enjoyed an economic boom that outpaces most U.S. metros. Many workers are better off than they were in 2009

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/the-avenue/posts/2016/05/17-portland-primary-economy-liu

Regional alignment, not competition: How Greater Milwaukee is remaking economic development (Amy Liu, Brookings)

Nearly every city and its surrounding counties compete on business location, motivated to maximize their individual tax bases. I have written, along with countless others, about how this prisoner’s dilemma for jurisdictions often results in little, if any, creation of new jobs or income in metro areas.

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/the-avenue/posts/2016/04/27-milwaukee-economic-development-liu

U.S. cities should not abandon trade (Amy Liu, Joseph Parilla, Brookings)

The steep decline of manufacturing jobs, stagnant wages, and rising anger among working class voters about their economic future has sparked a growing skepticism about globalization, launching the country into a weeks-long back and forth about the merits of trade for the U.S. economy.

Continue reading here ...

Metropolitan Lens podcast: How Baltimore’s new mayor can promote economic growth and equity (Amy Liu, Brookings)

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/the-avenue/posts/2016/03/22-metro-lens-baltimore-mayor-economic-growth-liu

Why economic development matters (Amy Liu, Brookings)

In response to the uneven performance of the U.S. economy, the latest economic report to the president makes the case for inclusive growth. It calls for policies to increase productivity and the economic participation of the current and future labor force. It recognizes the role of early childhood education, criminal justice reform, and neighborhood desegregation, alongside curbs to rent-seeking behavior.

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/the-avenue/posts/2016/03/07-economic-development-matters-liu

Remaking Economic Development (Amy Liu, Brookings)

The lackluster U.S. economy is delivering a humbling lesson about economic development: Top-line growth doesn’t ensure bottom-line prosperity. The potential of economic development is to do what markets alone cannot do: influence growth through action and investments.

http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports2/2016/02/29-remaking-economic-development

Including inclusion: A new approach to economic development in Upstate New York (Amy Liu, Brookings)

Amid growing concern that the economy is not creating widespread opportunities, more and more regional civic and community leaders are sharpening their focus on inclusion within their broader economic development strategies. The CenterState Corporation for Economic Opportunity (CenterState CEO) in central New York has pioneered innovative economic efforts around exports, new technologies, and workforce development. It just added one more initiative to watch —a new undertaking focused on economic inclusion, bolstered by the region’s $500 million award from the state of New York as part of the Upstate Revitalization Initiative (URI).

To learn more about the region’s approach, I reached out to Dominic Robinson, CenterState CEO’s first vice president for economic inclusion.

Inclusion falls outside the traditional scope of an economic development organization. How do you define economic inclusion, and how did it become central to CenterState CEO’s strategy?

For us, economic inclusion begins by acknowledging that the Syracuse region, like many of our peers in the post-industrial Midwest and Northeast, faces unacceptable rates of poverty and economic disparity. While an economic development organization might have relegated these issues to community developers, we’ve decided to address this reality head-on, with encouragement from our business and civic leaders.

If unaddressed, these dynamics will pose a serious long-term threat to our economy as a whole—from increased demand for social services, to potential spikes in crime, to increased blight in our neighborhoods. We must rise to the challenge by translating economic growth into economic opportunity for all.

What types of strategies or specific initiatives do you plan to pursue to promote economic inclusion?

This challenge cannot be met with a single solution; it requires a diverse array of innovative strategies, undertaken by a broad collaboration of organizations and leaders.

With Work Train, our “dual client” workforce development platform, we’re fostering workforce solutions that meet both the hiring needs of local employers while creating career opportunities for un- and underemployed residents.

We’re also focused on empowering neighborhood-based, minority, and other underserved entrepreneurs and business owners, including by supporting an emerging regional minority chamber of commerce and piloting a business incubation and expansion program for neighborhood-based and minority entrepreneurs.

And we’re supporting a variety of initiatives and projects aimed at stabilizing and revitalizing distressed neighborhoods, towns, and villages. This often means working with anchor institutions and social service agencies and providing strategic and technical assistance (not to mention advocacy) for real estate, business attraction, or expansion projects that can have a positive impact on low-income communities.

What are you doing to ensure that inclusion is integrated across CenterState CEO’s economic development activities and is not just a separate line of business?

It’s been critical to identify points of alignment between our work and that of colleagues who are engaged in more traditional economic development.

The business and economic development team is working intensively with hundreds of employers at any given time, on everything from developing export plans to increasing brand visibility, so it just makes sense to empower those colleagues to also address talent and hiring challenges.

And as we develop programs targeting underserved, neighborhood-based, and minority entrepreneurs, we’re embedding that work in our innovation and entrepreneurship efforts. Not only has that made the process more efficient, it’s created a more diverse network of startups within our organization’s portfolio.

The region is about to launch a new Alliance for Economic Inclusion with funds from the Upstate Revitalization Initiative. Who are its members and what is its mandate? How is it going to help you deepen the economic inclusion work in the region?

The Alliance for Economic Inclusion (AEI) emerged from an intensive planning process for our URI proposal. After bringing together a diverse cross section of community leaders to help develop strategies that would ensure alignment between economic growth and economic opportunity, we realized we needed a long-term vehicle for managing that alignment. We proposed that the alliance be formed to develop a framework for rolling out inclusion initiatives laid out in the plan and ensuring a transparent and outcome-oriented approach to how these funds are prioritized and allocated.

The members of the alliance itself will be appointed soon by the Central New York Regional Economic Development Council (the body appointed by the governor to develop and administer regional plans). We expect that the alliance will be diverse geographically (urban, rural, and suburban), racially, and occupationally (public, private, and non-profit sectors).

There are important intersections between CenterState CEO’s economic inclusion agenda and the alliance. Along with other regional organizations, CenterState CEO will be responsible for implementing initiatives funded by the alliance. And since we will be actively involved in many other URI-funded initiatives, we will also be able to identify additional opportunities for economic inclusion. However, meaningful engagement from the grassroots level is important too. If CenterState CEO is driving the entire process, it won’t be truly effective.

What hurdles do you anticipate in ensuring that economic inclusion is not just a concept, but becomes a reality in your region?

Achieving economic inclusion involves dealing with systemic and intractable issues, such as the complexities of concentrated poverty. Effective solutions must ultimately account for these realities, despite the fact that they’re often not given much consideration within the realm of economic development.

The strategy also requires bringing together disparate parties, including along racial and urban-suburban-rural divides, to solve really difficult challenges, which will not always be a smooth process.

New York’s powerful regional partnerships for economic growth (Amy Liu, Brookings)

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/the-avenue/posts/2016/01/07-new-york-economic-growth-partnership-liu

Achieving an advanced economy that works for all: The Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program in 2016 and beyond (Alan Berube, Amy Liu, Brookings)

http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2016/01/06-advanced-economy-for-all-metropolitan-policy-program-berube

(Istituto fondamentale - Global) Hard lessons from creating jobs and opportunity in the next economy (Amy Liu, Brookings)

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/the-avenue/posts/2015/07/30-psmi-jobs-and-opportunity-hard-lessons-liu