Margery Austin Turner, Vice President for Research at The Urban Institute, recently shared insights on the persistence of neighborhood segregation in a presentation at HUD titled “Racial & Ethnic Equity Gaps – How Do the 100 Biggest Metros Compare?” Ms. Turner’s research centers on changes in neighborhood composition between 1980 and today.

Resilience has become a ubiquitous concept among both academics and practitioners of urban and regional studies. Yet for all its potential as a framework for examining how communities can protect against and respond to adversity, resilience risks becoming another economic development buzzword if not employed in a meaningful way.

When disaster strikes, such as the multiple-vortex EF5 tornado that struck Joplin, Missouri in May 2011, two groups of HUD staff — Office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R) analysts at HUD's headquarters and Economic and Market Analysis Division (EMAD) field economists located around the nation — know they will likely provide needed analyses of the local economy, housing market, and households affected by the disaster.

Beginning in June 2010, HUD and the U.S. Department of the Treasury have jointly issued monthly "scorecards" on the nation's housing market. These scorecards have incorporated key national housing market indicators to show the depth of the housing crisis historically and have highlighted the effects of the administration's unprecedented efforts to stabilize the housing market and aid its recovery.

Downtown Elgin, Illinois, located just 40 miles northwest of Chicago, has long enjoyed a vibrant arts scene complete with museums, performance halls, opera and theater companies, and the Elgin Symphony Orchestra, the second-largest orchestra in the state. However, downtown Elgin has not always been the premier arts and entertainment destination it is today; urban decay, loss of retail, and a spike in abandoned buildings beginning in the 1970s and continuing into the 1980s left Elgin in economic decline.

Since the 1970s, the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program has provided an important source of funding to assist local governments with various community development projects and programs. HUD allocates 70 percent of CDBG funds directly to qualifying "entitlement communities," which include principal cities, satellite cities, and urban counties within metropolitan areas.

Set for a late 2012 completion, a new development in the Melrose neighborhood of the South Bronx — situated on formerly contaminated land in a historically distressed neighborhood — is a prime example of quality affordable, sustainable, and mixed-income housing. Known as Via Verde, the project was the winning entry of the New Housing New York (NHNY) Design Ideas Competition of 2004, sponsored by the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects and the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development.