Income

Land Use

Bay Area Opportunity Zones

March 30, 2018 By Chirag Rabari
Map of the Month March 2018 - CA Opportunity Zones

March's Map of the Month from MTC and ABAG Executive Director Steve Heminger looks at Bay Area "Opportunity Zones" designated by the State of California Department of Finance (DOF).

From the Executive Director's latest report to the MTC Commission and ABAG Executive Board:

The federal tax bill, passed in December 2017, allows investors to defer or eliminate capital gains on investments made in “Opportunity Zones”. These zones must be designated by the governor in each state from a set of eligible Census tracts. Governors must select no more than 25 percent of eligible tracts statewide. Federal criteria for determining eligible areas states that tracts must either have poverty rates above 20 percent or median family income below 80 percent of either the statewide or metropolitan area income. Slightly over 3,500 Census tracts in California qualify under this criteria, spread across 54 counties. The state’s final recommendation is provided on the map. Within the Bay Area, 530 tracts were eligible under the federal criteria, of which 107 were recommended by DOF to the governor. Of the 107 recommended tracts, 94 tracts were MTC Communities of Concern. 

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Census
Communities of Concern
Income
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Opportunity Zones
Housing

International Comparisons of Intergenerational Trends: Income, Labor, Housing and Wealth

February 20, 2018 By Chirag Rabari
Tokyo Skyline
According to a new report from the Resolution Foundation, Japan significantly increased its per-capita housing stock between 1990 and 2015. The United States, by contrast, lost ground over the same period. Image Credit: iStock/Getty, yongyuan.

Led by MTC and ABAG, Vital Signs is the Bay Area’s performance monitoring initiative, tracking key trends related to transportation, land and people, the economy, the environment and social equity.  Vital Signs puts data in local, regional and national context by evaluating indicators over time, examining differences between cities and counties, and comparing the Bay Area with other peer metropolitan areas. 

Sometimes, zooming out to the international level can be just as illuminating. This new report – International Comparisons of Intergenerational Trends – from the Resolution Foundation, a British think tank, is definitely worth a look. The report “explores the extent to which the UK’s generational living standards challenge is replicated in other high-income economies,” focusing on trends in income gains and losses, labor markets, and housing and wealth for younger adults and millennials. 

The report has lots of fascinating findings (key points excerpted in full below), but one particularly interesting data point concerns relatively low housing stock levels, especially among primarily English-speaking countries – all of whose younger generations, it should be noted, are facing major housing price pressures.  Read More

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Housing
Income
Labor
Vital Signs
Youth