Federal Reserve Bank
of San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank
of San Francisco

Community Development Innovation Review

The Community Development Innovation Review focuses on bridging the gap between theory and practice, from as many viewpoints as possible. The goal of this journal is to promote cross-sector dialogue around a range of emerging issues and related investments that advance economic resilience and mobility for low- and moderate-income communities.

  • Charter Schools Ripe for Green Investments

    Kim Dempsey and Jennifer Afdahl Rice, Capital Impact Partners

    Green schools promote a healthy, productive learning environment, improved teacher retention, hands-on learning opportunities, and environmental stewardship. In addition, green schools can serve as examples in their communities, providing opportunities to share the lessons and rewards of sustainable development.

  • Home Energy Efficiency and Mortgage Risks: An Extended Abstract

    Nikhil Kaza, Roberto G. Quercia, UNC Center for Community Capital, Department of City and Regional Planning, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Robert J. Sahadi, Institute for Market Transformation

    This paper provides initial evidence of the associative relationship between home energy efficiency and mortgage risks.

  • Integrating Energy Efficiency into Mortgage Financing: Promising Efforts in the New York City Multifamily Building Sector

    Sam Marks, Vice President, Deutsche Bank

    From the vantage point of Deutsche Bank’s community development activities, we see some promising initiatives that treat energy efficiency upgrades not as a separate, stand-alone transaction, but as a component in existing transactional frameworks, namely the multifamily mortgage refinancing process.

  • Utilities and Community Developers Partner to Improve the Energy Efficiency of Affordable Rental Housing Nationwide

    Michael Bodaken and Todd Nedwick, National Housing Trust

    Improving the energy efficiency in homes is an important strategy for reducing poverty’s impact on low-income families.

  • Manufactured Homes Help Both Save the Planet and Save Money for Low-Income Owners

    Stacey Epperson, Next Step and Doug Ryan, Corporation for Enterprise Development

    Addressing affordable housing while simultaneously reducing pollution seems like an impossible task. Yet manufactured housing can do just that.

  • Financing Energy Efficiency Retrofits of Affordable Multifamily Buildings

    Jack Markowski, Community Investment Corporation; Anne Evens, Elevate Energy; and Matt Schwartz, California Housing Partnership Corporation

    This paper reviews the challenges facing the multifamily housing energy efficiency market and the opportunity that tools such as on-bill repayment provide to finance energy efficiency retrofits for the subsidized affordable multifamily market.

  • Cleaner Energy and Health: Household, Local and Global Benefits

    Dana Bourland, JPB Foundation and Yianice Hernandez, Enterprise Community Partners, Inc.

    Energy is central to the very service systems that sustain human life and well-being such as transportation, buildings, materials, infrastructure, food, hygiene, thermal comfort, communications, and lighting. But how we choose to supply energy can also have negative consequences such as water scarcity, air pollution, and extreme weather related events.

  • The Future of the Clean (Green) Economy

    Denise G. Fairchild, Emerald Cities Collaborative

    This article describes the trends and job prospects in the clean economy, with an emphasis on the clean energy sector.

  • Mixing Asset Building with Energy Efficiency: A Recipe for Financial and Environmental Sustainability

    Andrea Levere, President, Corporation for Enterprise Development

    The growing connection between energy efficiency and savings is just one of many integrated approaches that are defining the future of social policy.

  • The Green Issue

    This issue of the Community Development Investment Review highlights a number of deliberate, innovative interdisciplinary efforts that seek to concurrently and holistically address community development and environmental issues. Many of them focus on cities and their surroundings. They are diverse in the combination of issues they touch and address including air quality, climate change, water access on the environmental side, and education, health, and affordable housing on the community development side, and they are diverse in their range of approaches and partnerships.