Community Development departments across the Federal Reserve System have for many years focused on workforce development measures as a means to address poverty. Low- and moderate-income (LMI) populations tend to have less education than higher income populations. Less education correlates with jobs that pay less and offer less employment security. Public high schools around the country, ... Read More
On Friday September 27, 2013, The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago hosted the Summit on Regional Competiveness (Summit) with The Alliance for Regional Development (Alliance) and the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce. The Alliance is an economic development group working to implement recommendations contained in a 21-county, tri-state (Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin) analysis completed by ... Read More
On September 26, 2013, the Chicago Association for Business Economics (CABE) hosted a lunch meeting with Steve Landefeld, Director of the US Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. In his presentation “Lessons Learned from the Financial Crisis and the Great Recession”, Landefeld discussed the BEA's initiative to produce measures beyond gross domestic pr... Read More
With the help of the City of Chicago's Department of Housing and Economic Development, in the fall of 2012 the Chicago Fed's Community Development and Policy Studies (CDPS) unit distributed a survey to community-based, non-profit groups in Chicago to gauge the pre- and post-recession business climate in Chicago's 77 community areas. The organizations surveyed provide business development... Read More
Forty years ago Aaron and Sylvia Scheinfeld decided to take action since they were unhappy with redlining, predatory lending, and inequality in access to credit and financial services that plagued the Chicago region. Since 1973 Woodstock has lived by its mission to “create a just financial system in which lower-income people and minorities can achieve economic security and community prosp... Read More
On June 18, 2013, the Federal Reserve Bank branches of Richmond, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and Chicago-Detroit hosted a video-conference that brought together community development practitioners and policymakers to discuss the strategies in each city to bring in new residents, retain existing households, and to provide economic opportunities for all residents. The challenges facing many o... Read More
The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago's Community Development and Policy Studies division will host a discussion about Investing in What Works for America's Communities on Monday, June 17, 2013. Although registration has exceeded capacity for this gathering, you can join us for the discussion. Follow us on Twitter @whatworksforusa, or @chicagofed and include the hashtag #whatworks i... Read More
This blog is a summary of Community Development and Policy Studies topics in the Seventh District from the latest CDPS Survey. According to the latest CDPS survey: Many issues still impact the housing market in the Seventh District, especially in low- and moderate-income communities (LMI). Contacts mentioned that the oversupply of vacant homes, the number of underwater mortgages (unpaid bal... Read More
A large body of research and evidence demonstrates inextricable linkages between economic success and physical and mental wellbeing in communities. People who live in economically challenged areas endure more stress and demonstrate higher levels of mental illness, are more prone to serious and earlier onset of disease, and live shorter lives, irrespective of genetic predispositions. ... Read More
Recently, the news media have been discussing an uptick in the housing market. We document some of the positive effects we have seen in the Seventh District in a series of Foreclosure Graphs, shown here and available on our Foreclosure Resource Center website. Start rates, which measure the pace at which homes enter foreclosure, have come down significantly. This is a... Read More