The first years of the 2020s have forced the United States to contend with a litany of major issues, including the COVID-19 pandemic, digital disruptions, climate change, racial and gender divides, and the continuing need for more middle-class jobs. But they have also ushered in a period of bold, urgent responses. Across the federal government, agencies are launching larger-scale, more in-depth initiatives for accelerating innovation, optimizing supply chains, mitigating climate change, and addressing demographic and geographic inequities.
An important part of this response is the surge of programs using place-based, challenge-oriented designs to generate experiments with the potential to fix the nation’s largest problems, as displayed first by the Economic Development Administration’s (EDA) $1 billion Build Back Better Regional Challenge (BBBRC).
Six keys to unlocking a new era of place-based federal investment (brookings.edu)
