Housing is becoming a greater priority for economic development organizations because they are highly focused on talent. Economic development leaders need to care about the factors that affect where individuals working in high-demand occupations at all skill levels want to — and are able to — live as well as where they work.
Thoughtful community leaders are engaged on this issue but have not made as much progress as expected. In practice, places have mostly continued to go along with business as usual in economic development and housing policies. At the end of the day, there is still typically a housing strategy and a transportation strategy and an economic development strategy that mostly pay lip service to the others.
This is changing. Worrying about jobs without also worrying about how people will get to those jobs and the residences they are coming from is inadequate. The challenge is to identify ways that communities can get these disciplines to work together.
Working with our partner Lisa Sturtevant, we recently presented a webinar on Housing and Economic Development Strategies for Inclusive Communities with host C2ER that describes specific examples from across the country of ways state and local entities are starting to change their approach to economic development and housing strategies. We invite you to view our slide deck to learn about these approaches and ideas on how to begin this process in your community.
Recent Comments