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Local innovators will be eligible for prize funding for the most promising market- and policy-based innovations to address housing devaluation

WASHINGTON, Oct. 23, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Economic Architecture and The Brookings Institution today announced the opening of the Valuing Homes in Black Communities Challenge, which focuses on identifying structural innovations with the potential to (re)design the market to address the devaluation of homes in Black neighborhoods and build an architecture of equality. The challenge aims to engage people, firms, and organizations to work with their counterparts across the U.S. to foster the most promising structural innovations. The effort pairs Brookings's commitment to independent, data-driven analysis and Economic Architecture's focus on (re)designing the market to serve the public good.

To mark the launch of the challenge, Economic Architecture and Brookings have co-published a new interactive "Innovation Map," which highlights innovations across the country, garnered by reviewing over 4,300 organizations and interviewing more than 70 innovators. Forthcoming reports about new trends are also in the works and will be released later this year. In tandem, innovators are invited from the public sector, private sector, citizen sector, and academia to enter a collaborative challenge and propose their most powerful policy-based or market-based new ideas. Featured Innovators will be announced in January 2025 with Spotlight Innovators and prize funding announced in February 2025.

"To address the devaluation of homes in Black-majority neighborhoods, we need a new generation of structural innovations with the potential to (re)design the market. Innovators in communities proximate to the problem all across the country are leading the way," said Stuart Yasgur, founder and principal of Economic Architecture. "The collaborative challenge provides an opportunity for action, to bring innovators together with the philanthropic funding, policy makers, and partners they need to address the problem."

Over 3.2 million owner-occupied homes in Black-majority neighborhoods across America have been collectively devalued by $156 billion. Yet, as previous has shown, differences in home and community quality do not fully explain lower prices of homes in Black neighborhoods. Instead, past discrimination and present attitudes influence current and future housing prices.

"The devaluation of homes in Black-majority neighborhoods is a systematic and nearly ubiquitous failure. We need to move from this initial one-time effort to create a sustained commitment with the potential to address the devaluation of Black-owned assets and homes," said Andre Perry, senior fellow and director of the Center for Community Uplift at Brookings. "There is no single silver bullet solution to address devaluation. We need an agenda for future research and innovation."

While these communities may be overlooked as sites for economic development, they contain important assets, in terms of people, public infrastructure, and wealth. Addressing the current devaluation and preventing future devaluation require structural innovations in public policy and private markets coupled with growing demand for those innovations from community members, funders, investors, policy makers, and strategic partners who each have a critical role to play in addressing devaluation.

A new framework is needed that makes it obvious that there are assets in Black-majority neighborhoods, that those assets are devalued because of the current economic structures, and that we can, and we need to, address this failing by (re)designing the structure of our markets.

If interested in joining, participating, or learning more about the Challenge, visit the website .

The Valuing Homes in Black Communities Challenge is supported by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, JPMorganChase, and Progressive Insurance®.

About Economic Architecture:

Economic Architecture is dedicated to building the field of economic architecture by fostering, designing, and building a new understanding of structural innovations. When we (re)design our markets— the largest coordinating mechanisms in society— to serve the public good, we have the potential to tap into the drive, creativity, and ingenuity of each person for the benefit of everyone in society.

About Brookings Metro and the Center for Community Uplift:

Brookings Metro is the nation's leading source of ideas and action to create more prosperous, just, and resilient communities. The Center for Community Uplift (CCU) at Brookings is an initiative that seeks to increase economic security and well-being for people across racial and geographic lines. Through innovative public policy research, CCU aims to dismantle discrimination, racism, and exclusion. Rather than focus on racial disparity, CCU's research explores how diversity and inclusion can yield better outcomes for all by building upon the assets and strengths in cities and neighborhoods.

As an independent, non-partisan Institution, Brookings Metro will provide research, analysis, and recommendations through its work that reflect independent and rigorous scholarship. Brookings Metro will make the final determinations regarding the research, content, and outcomes and will at no time promote the interests of any donor nor provide exclusive access to government officials.

Media Contact

Lisa Jaycox, Economic Architecture, 1 646-244-6992, [email protected],

Erin Raftery, The Brookings Institution, 1 202-238-3191, [email protected],

SOURCE Economic Architecture