Curated Webinar: ARPA and US Placemaking

On Tuesday, June 11th from 1:30pm to 3:00pm Eastern Time, Next City is hosting a webinar to explore ARPA’s significant investment in local governments. The webinar includes representatives from PlacemakingUS, National League of Cities, and Michigan Municipal League to discuss what we have seen with ARPA’s historic investment at the state and local level. Click here to learn more.  

Locally, we have been intentional in our approach to ARPA funds, with an eye toward inclusive and equitable recovery. See our Inclusive Recovery narrative page and Federal Recovery Funds dashboard for more information and relevant case studies. 

Curated Webinar: Black voters and the complexity of race and politics in the 2024 elections

On May 16, 2024, the Race, Prosperity, and Inclusion Initiative at Brookings held a virtual event where scholars discussed trends and insights specifically about Black voters. The live YouTube event highlighted some myths about Black voters – including debunking the idea that Black people don’t vote – and provided insight into why Black voters may not unanimously support the Democratic party in the way that popular culture would like. 

Pro tip: At about 49 minutes in, an audience member asks for how white allies can support Black voters. 

Note: Brookings will be hosting similar webinars for other racial/ethnic groups. Sign up for the Race, Prosperity, and Inclusion Initiative events newsletter here.

Testing a Guaranteed Basic Income

In Rochester, one in four people live in poverty. Imagine how our community might change if everyone had enough money to cover living expenses, as well as enough to manage urgent or unexpected ones.

That’s part of what the City of Rochester is exploring in its 12-month Guaranteed Basic Income Pilot Program, which began in 2023. The idea is to see how a guaranteed payment of $500 per month will help residents who live at or below 185% of the federal poverty level. Payments are unconditional — participants do not have work requirements or restrictions on how to spend money. 

Other cities across the country are exploring similar programs to find ways to address poverty.

Pilot programs like these are valuable because they allow us to test novel approaches on a small scale in the real world. The key is that these projects last only for a prescribed period of time. Fears of failure and loss of funding can bring the temptation to let them go on indefinitely without analysis, but it is essential to stop and evaluate the data.

Rochester’s Guaranteed Basic Income Pilot made its first payments in October 2023. As the program unfolds over the coming months, city officials and their community partners will be examining its impacts. We will all have to stay tuned!

Curated Op-Ed: Gentrification’s Roots in the Post-Industrial City

NextCity’s February 1, 2024, opinion editorial about the roots of gentrification uses the city of San Jose in the Silicon Valley as the setting for a story of business development and incumbent residents. Rochester is mentioned, along with Detroit, as the urban case trajectory to avoid, where economic collapse and population decline have plagued the city. 

The article is a great reference for the sociology of the post-industrial city and provides important historical information.