August 5, 2024
Are Opportunity Zones an Effective Place-Based Policy?
When Congress passed and President Trump signed into law the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act at the end of 2017, most attention centered on the reduction in the corporate tax rate and overhaul of the individual tax code. Few noticed a provision added at the last minute establishing a new place-based policy in the United…
January 2, 2024
Billionaire-Built Cities Would Be Better Than Nothing
A company backed by Silicon Valley’s most powerful investors, including the LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, assembled a land empire outside San Francisco and announced a bold vision to build a brand-new city — and was immediately castigated by the world’s urbanists. Critics describe the effort by the company, Flannery…
November 14, 2023
The Impact of Opportunity Zones on Private Investment and Economic Activity
Abstract Place-based policies aim to stimulate economic development in disadvantaged areas with the goal of improving the well-being of residents. A provision of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act aimed to spur private investment in low-income areas called Opportunity Zones (OZs). We evaluate the impact of OZs on investment using data on the near-universe of…
November 14, 2023
The Comeback City
Introduction “Given New York Today, Could Anyone Lead It?” So bemoaned a 1991 New York Times headline after decades of failure and futility.1 Crime was endemic, schools were failing, poverty was pervasive, and the economy had stagnated. From John Lindsay to David Dinkins, mayor after mayor had tried to tackle these problems. They had all…
September 15, 2023
Cities and Severe Mental Illness: The Challenge in New York City and Los Angeles
In 2022, New York City Mayor Eric Adams introduced measures to remedy the ongoing crisis of individuals with severe mental illnesses left untreated and unsheltered. Have his efforts been successful? Join AEI Senior Fellow Sally Satel, the Adams administration’s senior adviser on severe mental illness, a director of a Bronx-based homeless shelters network, and a…
July 23, 2023
Lawlessness Is Spreading in Our Cities
Much of the criticism of the changes in the criminal-justice system has been focused on the decriminalizing of errant behaviors and the lack of serious responses to the gun violence that plagues many urban black neighborhoods. What is largely ignored is the breakdown in lawful behavior in other less life-threatening areas: car and traffic violations, fare-beaters…
May 30, 2023
Interest in Democratic Values is High Outside Urban Cores
With the COVID-19 pandemic declared over, a significant question for politicians, planners, and pundits alike is what to do with city centers and old urban cores after the pandemic pushed many Americans to move away from dense urban areas. For many, the central city remains an idealized version of spatial organization, serving as an engine of…