The Project
The Urban Institute’s Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center pursued a place-based U.S. research project that analyzed how and where mission-driven actors are deploying catalytic capital, and where capital gaps remain. Using Cleveland as a case study, researchers focused on asset classes such as small business lending, single-family and multifamily mortgage finance, and commercial real estate finance. They considered spatial patterns with regard to neighborhood characteristics and the public and private sectors in the local ecosystem.
Value and Outcomes
A deep-dive approach to analyzing place-based investing can generate compelling data to show the impact of multiple forms of catalytic capital, as well as how conventional investment works in concert with catalytic capital to drive progress. By focusing on Cleveland, which has a rich ecosystem of catalytic capital providers and a history of efforts to combat community disinvestment, the Urban Institute tells a story about the role that catalytic capital can play in fueling economic recovery and social impact in communities that have experienced historical disinvestment.
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