Fall Luncheon Series '08

Faculty Presentations:Professor Xavier de Souza Briggs, Professor Karl Seidman and Professor J. Philip Thompson

Speaker: Ross Gittell

Ross Gittell is the James R. Carter Professor at the University of New Hampshire's Whittemore School of Business and Economics. He is the author of over 50 academic articles and two books. He is Vice President, forecast manager and on the board of the New England Economic Partnership and also on the boards of the Exeter Trust Comppany, the Endowment for Health and Exeter Hospital. Professor Gittell is a senior fellow at the Carsey Institute at UNH and an academic fellow at the Center for Transformation and Stategic Initiatives at the London School of Economics. His most recent research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Commerce and the Energy Foundation. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University, M.B.A from University of California at Berkeley and A.B from the University of Chicago.

Topic: New England's "Green Economy": Defining It and Exploring Opportunities

Talk overview: Rising energy prices and growing concern about climate change and the environmental impact of energy use has enhanced U.S. consumer, business and governmental interest in energy consevation and renewable energy sources. It also has created new economic and employment opportunities during a period of declining employment and rising unemployment. Together this has inspired discussions across the New England region and the country - in states and cities and in urban, suburban and rural areas -- about "green-collar jobs and the "green economy." While, these discussions are oftentimes exciting, much of the commentary suffers from a lack of specificity and insufficient data and categorization. This talk will present exploratory research meant to inform discussions about the green economy in New England with detailed description, categorization and data on "green" industries and jobs in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and the region's 67 counties.

Speaker: Susan Popkin

Dr. Susan J. Popkin is a Principal Research Associate in The Urban Institute’s Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center.  A nationally-recognized expert on assisted housing, mobility, and the “hard to house,”, Dr. Popkin directs the “Roof Over Their Heads: Changes and Challenges for Public Housing Residents” research initiative, which examines the impact the radical changes in public housing policy over the past decade have had on residents’ lives.  Dr. Popkin is the lead author of The Hidden War: Crime and the Tragedy of Public Housing in Chicago, has written numerous papers and book chapters on housing and poverty-related issues, and is co-author of the forthcoming book, Moving to Opportunity: The Story of an American Experiment to Fight Ghetto Poverty.

Topic: Housing the Poorest: Reform, Neglect, and Innovation in U.S. Policy

Focusing on what have been learned from more than a decade of public housing transformation, focusing on the ways it has helped former residents and the challenges that remain, especially how to effectively address the needs of the "hard to house."

Speaker: Rachel Bratt

Prof. Rachel Bratt is a professor in the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University. She served as Chair of the Department from 1995 to 2001. Her research is focused on the housing needs of low-income households and she is particularly interested in the role of public housing and nonprofit community-based organizations in supplying decent, affordable housing.

Topic: Risk and Responsibility in the Subprime Crisis

"Risk and Responsibility in the Subprime Crisis" will focus on the variety of stakeholders affected by or responsible for the crisis: the layers of financial entities involved; homeowners; and government regulators.
Ms. Bratt will show how the subprime crisis takes us several steps away from positive movement toward a Right to Housing.

Speaker: Marshall Ganz

Topic: Organizing Obama: Leadership, Story and Strategy

Speaker:Carla Dickstein is Senior Vice-President for Research and Policy Development at Coastal Enterprises, Inc. (CEI), based in Wiscasset, Maine.  CEI is one of the country’s leading Community Development Finance Institutions (CDFIs) based in Wiscasset, Maine.  For the past 16 years she has focused on measuring social impact, how CEI puts sustainable development into practice; new program initiatives, and preventing predatory mortgage lending and foreclosures.  She has published various reports and articles on these topics, including the report she coauthored in 2006,  Predatory Mortgages in Maine, whichled to successful passage of Maine’s strong antipredatory lending law in June 2007.   Recent research papers on “Assessing the Systemic Impact of Community Development Loan Funds” and “The Roles of CDFIs in Addressing the Subprime Mortgage Market:  A Case Analysis of New England” will be published by the CDFI Fund. 
Prior to coming to CEI Carla was on the faculty at West Virginia University’s Regional Research Institute and the West Virginia University Extension Service.  She holds a B.A. from Smith College, a Masters in Planning from the University of Minnesota, and a Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from the University of Pennsylvania.

Topic: From Practice to Policy: A strategy to Achieve Scale and Impact at Coastal Enterprises, INC.

DUSP/HCED Spring Speaker Series

All talks: Tuesdays, MIT Building 32, Room 144, 4:30-6:00 PM (unless otherwise indicated)

Déjà vu Economic Crisis All over Again: Connecting today’s and the 1980s economic crises and their impacts on communities and regions

Three decades ago the nation faced an economic crisis that has been described as the worst downturn since the Great Depression. A convergence of factors at the end of the post-war boom––bank failures, high energy costs and resultant high inflation, corporate mismanagement, international competition, technological change—led to massive job losses in the manufacturing sector, falling housing prices, and declining wages. Regional dislocation left the nation’s industrial heartland in shambles.  Today’s economic crisis is reminiscent of the previous downturn, yet stark differences are evident. For people and communities, the crisis is widespread and involves issues far beyond plant closings and layoffs. In fact, the 1980s crisis and its stagnant wages, growth in low-income jobs, and use of cheap money to maintain the economy sowed the seeds of the current crisis. Unable to see a material change in their standards of living through wage increases, Americans used access to home equity, subprime mortgages and credit debt to boost consumption. This lecture series will look back at the economic crisis of the 1980s in order to look forward and consider what the current economic downturn will mean for communities, regions, and vulnerable population groups.  Join us in a series of public discussions led by planning and policy practitioners who were actively engaged in local, regional and national debates about the crisis of the 1980s as they reflect on arguably the worst economic downturn in the nation since the Great Depression.

Topic: Lessons and Contrasts: Understanding the Current Crisis through the Lens of 1980s De-Industrialization 

Speakers: Barry Bluestone, Stearns Trustee Professor of Political Economy and Dean of the School of Social Science, Urban Affairs, and Public Policy at Northeastern University

Amy Glasmeier, Department Head and Professor of Geography and Regional Planning, MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning

Topic: Federal Labor Policies and Economic Restructuring (**Note: session will be 5:30-7:00 PM**)

Speakers: Robert Kutner, Co-Founder and Co-Editor of The American Prospect and Author of Obama’s Challenge

Suzanne Teegarden, Principal, Workforce Learning Strategies

Topic: States, Regions and Localities as Innovators and Partners 

Speakers: Beth Siegel, President, Mt. Auburn Associates

As the president and co-founder of Mt. Auburn Associates, Beth Siegel has led Mt. Auburn for over 20 years in designing and implementing regional economic development strategies and evaluating economic development and workforce initiatives. 

Beth’s policy work and writings have been influential in the economic development field.  She wrote some of the earliest articles on the role of “clusters” in regional economic development and her report in the mid 90s to the Charles Stewart Mott and Ford Foundation—Jobs and the Urban Poor influenced the field of sectoral workforce development.  With concern for the fate of smaller cities, she also authored a report for the U.S. Economic Development Administration — Third Tier Cities:  Adjusting to the New Economy. 

Siegel gained recognition for her work on the strategic role that arts and culture play in economic growth, including the path-breaking study The Creative Economy Initiative:  The Role of the Arts and Culture in New England's Economic Competitiveness, and two recently released reports, Creative New York and  Louisiana: Where Culture Means Business.  Siegel has also co-authored two reports for Arkansas’ creative economy.  Siegel is currently working in Washington, D.C. in an effort to redefine the importance of the creative economy in the District, and in North Carolina’s Piedmont Triad region to create a strategic plan for the creative arts cluster.

Prior to founding Mt. Auburn, Beth served as Deputy Research Director of the Massachusetts Governor's Commission on the Future of Mature Industries and spent four years as Senior Associate at Counsel for Community Development, a pioneer in the development finance field.  She taught economic development planning in the graduate planning programs at MIT and Tufts University.  Siegel received a BA from Beloit College in Wisconsin and a Master in City and Regional Planning from Harvard University.

Eric Nakajima, Senior Policy Advisor in the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development

He provides support to the Secretary regarding housing and economic policy matters including the revitalization of Springfield, the Gateway Cities strategy, and the state’s regional development action plan, the Framework for Action.  Prior to joining the Patrick Administration, Mr. Nakajima was the Senior Research Manager in the Economic and Public Policy Research Unit of the UMass Donahue Institute.  He has authored noted studies in the area of state policy and regional development, cluster and industry analysis, housing policy, and economic development finance.  Mr. Nakajima previously worked as a consultant in urban and real estate economics and had experience in state government as a member of the UMass Board of Trustees (student appointee) and as a policy coordinator in the Governor’s Office under Governor Michael S. Dukakis.  He earned a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and a Masters of City Planning from the University of California, Berkeley. 

Topic: Sector Driven Recovery Strategies: Revitalizing the Housing Market

Speaker: Lynn Fisher, Association Professor or Real Estate, MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning and MIT Center for Real Estate

Professor Lynn M. Fisher is an Associate Professor of Real Estate in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning and at the Center for Real Estate at MIT.  She currently holds the Ford Development Chair and is Director of the MIT/CRE Housing Affordability Initiative.  She received her Ph.D. in Business Administration from the Smeal School of Business at Pennsylvania State University in 2002 where she concentrated in real estate finance and microeconomics.  Her academic research examines the economic efficiency of contracts, ownership and regulation in real estate markets.  In particular, recent work explores the residential permitting process, the regulatory behavior of local governments making permit decisions, and the impact of tenure decisions on labor market outcomes.  She has published articles in the Journal of Urban Economics, Real Estate Economics, Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics and Urban Studies.  Over the last five years, her teaching portfolio at MIT includes graduate courses on housing markets, real estate development, and legal issues in development. 

Elenanor White, President, Housing Partners, Inc.

Eleanor White is President of Housing Partners, Inc., a Boston area-based national housing consulting firm she formed in 1995.  Previously, she was Co-CEO of the Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency (1983-1995), and held a variety of positions at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in Washington and Boston from 1967-1983.  She is a co-author of the report leading to the passage of the Smart Growth Zoning and Housing Production Act, Chapter 40R and 40S. Housing Partners, Inc. consults to many for-profit, public, and nonprofit organizations, and many cities and towns.

Ms. White holds an A.B. cum laude from Harvard/Radcliffe College, a Master of Public Administration from Northeastern University, and was a Loeb Fellow at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

Ms. White has served and is serving on numerous boards of directors, including the Massachusetts Housing Investment Corporation, the Real Estate Finance Association, the Harvard Alumni Association, and MassALFA (the assisted living association). Ms. White has served as President of the Massachusetts Association for Mental Health, and is currently Chair of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board. She is a Past President of the Board of Citizens Housing and Planning Association,  Past CoChair of the MassALFA Statewide Task Force on Affordability in Assisted Living, and is currently Co-Chair of the Commonwealth Housing Task Force. She is Vice President of B’nai B’rith Housing New England and Senior Vice President of the American Jewish Committee in Boston. She was appointed by Mayor Thomas Menino to membership on the Mayor’s Housing Advisory Group, is Chair of the Boston Foundation’s Housing and Economic Development Policy Committee, and was appointed by Governor Deval Patrick as Chair of the MassHousing Multifamily Housing Advisory Committee.  She has won numerous awards for her work in affordable housing, diversity issues, and service to the community.

Ms. White lives in Newton with her husband, Barry, an attorney.  They are the parents of three sons.

Topic: Sector Driven Recovery Strategies: The New Energy Economy

Speaker: Tim Franklin, Director, Office of Economic and Workforce Development, Pennsylvania State University

Timothy V. Franklin, Ph.D., is the Director, Office of Economic and Workforce Development at the Pennsylvania State University.  His professional focus at Penn State, and previously at Virginia Tech, as well as his scholarly interest, centers on the policies and practices of distributed research and innovation, regional stewarding institutions, and transformative regional and economic engagement.  As part of Virginia Tech’s “Southside Initiative” from 2001-2007, he was founding Executive Director of the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research (IALR).  Virginia Tech’s Southside Initiative competed with four other finalists at the 2007 Outreach Scholarship Conference and won the national C. Peter Magrath/W. K. Kellogg Foundation Engagement Award at the 2007 NASULGC Conference.

Nancy Franklin, Director of Strategic Initiatives for Outreach/Cooperative Extension, Pensylvania State University

Nancy Franklin is Director of Strategic Initiatives for Outreach/ Extension at Penn State University.  In this role she is responsible for providing operational leadership for the energy and environment thematic initiative, developing communication linkages between Outreach and Cooperative Extension, and developing engagement strategies that connect university expertise with the needs of Pennsylvania communities and regions.

Nancy came to Penn State from Danville, Virginia where she provided leadership on behalf of Virginia Tech to a large-scale engagement initiative, including the development of a new regional institution, focused on improving the long-term economic and social environment of Virginia’s south central Piedmont.  Her work in Southside Virginia focused on strategy development to engage university expertise to create new regional assets, including: an economic innovation base, an intellectual hub and high-value talent base, advanced network infrastructure, and community amenities.  While there, she held a joint appointment as Virginia Tech’s Southside Regional Director of Information Technology and the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research’s Senior Director of Planning and Academic Program Development.  In addition to institutional development, her responsibilities centered on directing academic and outreach programs, information technology infrastructure deployment and operations, strategic planning and institutional assessment, marketing and public relations, and conference operations.

Prior to this position with Virginia Tech, Nancy served as Director of Distance Education and Faculty Development at Indiana State University, and Coordinator of the Instructional Technology Initiative and Faculty Development Institute at Virginia Tech.  She came into higher education with a background in telecommunications and computing marketing, holding various headquarters and field positions with IBM and ROLM. 

Nancy earned her Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education at Bucknell University, her Master’s degree in Higher Education Administration at Virginia Tech, and her Ed.D. in Higher Education Management at the University of Pennsylvania.

Darlene Lambos, Co-Executive Director, Community Labor United

This talk has been cancelled.

Topic: Reforming the Social Safety Net: The Future of Pensions

Speaker: Gordon Clark, Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography, Oxford University

Gordon L Clark FBA, DSc is the Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography at Oxford University, holds a Professorial Fellowship at St Peter?s College, and until recently was a Senior Research Associate of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School. Previous academic appointments have been at Harvard?s Kennedy School of Government, the University of Chicago, Carnegie Mellon University (Heinz School of public policy and management), and Monash University (Melbourne, Australia). As well, he has been an Andrew Mellon Fellow at the US National Academy of Sciences.

An economic geographer with an extensive list of publications, his research focuses on global finance and pension fund governance including the structure and investment performance of these institutions. Papers on this topic have been published in the Journal of Pension Economics and Finance (2004, 2006, 2007), Risk Management and Insurance Review (2008), the Rotman International Journal of Pension Management (2008) and the Journal of Asset Management (2008). Related research is on household financial decision-making about long- term saving and retirement utilising theories and methods from the behavioural and social sciences in the context of risk and uncertainty. Papers on this topic have been published in the Transactions IBG (2007) and Ageing and Society
(2008) supported, in part, by the ESRC, Mercer?s and Watson Wyatt. Recent books include the forthcoming edited Managing Financial Risks (Oxford University Press 2009) (with Ashby Monk and Adam Dixon), The Geography of Finance (OUP 2007) (with Dariusz Wójcik), Pension Fund Capitalism (OUP 2000), European Pensions & Global Finance (OUP 2003), the co-edited Pension Security in the 21st Century (OUP 2003) and the Oxford Handbook of Pensions and Retirement Income (OUP 2006).

Topic: Geography and the Construction of US Poverty Policy

Speaker: Amy K. Glasmeier, Department Head and Professor of Geography and Regional Planning, MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning

Amy K. Glasmeier is the Department Head of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT. She is a professor of geography and regional planning. She has written two books focused on the special development problems of rural areas and has worked closely with academics and policy makers around the country to fashion programs designed to assist in formulating sustainable development strategies for rural areas. In addition, she has two books on policies to develop and expand technology industries. Her book, Manufacturing Time: Global Competition in the World Watch industry, 1750-2000, provides considerable perspective on how different modes of industrial organization and varieties of capitalism yield varying levels of competitive success of national systems of industrialization. Her most recent book, published fall 2005 by Routledge Press,  An Atlas of Poverty in America: One Nation,  Pulling Apart 1960-2003 examines the experience of people and places in poverty since the 1960s, looks across the last four decades at poverty in America and recounts the history of poverty policy since the 1940s.  As a practicing planner, she serves as an adviser and researcher for the Appalachian Regional Commission, and from 2005 to 2007 she was reappointed as the John Whisman Scholar of the Commission. She has worked with numerous federal agencies, and international development organizations in constructing development policies to alleviate poverty and promote economic opportunity. Her current work for the Appalachian Regional Commission explores the potential of renewable energy technologies to provide economic opportunity for communities in the region. In Pennsylvania, she serves as liaison and coordinator of a model multi-county development organization that provides technical assistance in the area of energy efficiency for schools, hospitals, municipalities, and non-profits.  She is currently developing a series of reports for the Ford Foundation on the utilization of energy as a catalyst for community economic, business and workforce development in low wealth communities. The project examines the potential to rapidly deploy energy efficiency and renewable energy investments to achieve economic security for families and businesses.