Cities have long been humankind’s greatest engines of opportunity and upward mobility. In the diverse economic geography of the United States, some cities and even neighborhoods are functioning far better as engines of opportunity than others. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously said that the nation’s diverse, decentralized states and localities are “laboratories of democracy.” Today, there are countless policy experiments at work in these laboratories, with valuable lessons for policymakers, community leaders, and all concerned with renewing economic mobility in America.
Why cities and neighborhoods so strongly influence economic mobility and how America can create more cities of opportunity
