Giving Compass' Take:

• Urban Institute identifies some trends in economic development to keep an eye on, including opportunity zones and alternative ownership structures.

• How might those who work on eliminating poverty and increasing affordability seize on some of these changes? In what ways should we build more resilience for natural disasters?

• Here are ways to fuel growth in a rapidly changing digital economy.

With divided government in 2019, we shouldn’t expect much new at the federal level in community development this year. But there are still several trends to watch for. We highlight five.

  1. Opportunity Zones will take effect in force. No surprise here. Opportunity Zones were the big community development story in 2018 and will continue to be in 2019. Proposed regulations should be finalized this year, creating more confidence for investors. Opportunity Funds are already being set up, and investment volumes will grow rapidly.
  2. Geographic winners and losers continue to solidify. Amazon’s process of opening a new headquarters got the most attention, but Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Salesforce also made recent decisions to move jobs to new metropolitan areas. Leaving the Bay Area might make it appear that tech profits will be more broadly distributed, but leading firms are actually reinforcing a broader trend of concentrating wealth in a dozen or more large metro areas, with many parts of the country falling behind.
  3. Alternative ownership structures raise opportunities. In an economy where business start-ups are at all-time lows and income inequality is at a modern high, co-op businesses offer alternatives to traditional shareholder- or proprietor-owned business structures. Expect more policy and philanthropic interest in co-ops in the year ahead, especially among worker cooperatives.
  4. Climate change will bring new disasters and the need for new funds. Natural disasters of increasing severity will continue to pose a threat in 2019, even while the recovery from 2018’s hurricanes and wildfires remains unfinished.
  5. Reimagining public assets can boost safety and connectedness. Communities are also regaining an appreciation for public assets.

Read the full article about trends to watch in community and economic development by Brett Theodos and Erika C. Poethig at Urban Institute.