Community Development

The Community Development and Regional Outreach Department supports the Federal Reserve System’s economic growth objectives by promoting community development in low- and moderate-income communities and fair and impartial access to credit in underserved markets. The department works closely with financial institutions, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies on public-private partnerships that result in increased affordable housing and community and economic development. The department assists financial institutions to understand their responsibilities under the federal Community Reinvestment Act (CRA).

To learn more about community development at the Philadelphia Fed, watch this
video .

Data Tools & Other Resources

Home Mortgage Explorer: This interactive data tool allows users to explore trends in mortgage lending between 2010 and 2017 for national, state, metropolitan, and nonmetropolitan geographies.

Rental Housing Affordability: This interactive tool enables users to examine trends in rental housing affordability in Third District states from 2011 to 2016.

Consumer Credit Explorer (CCE): This interactive tool enables users to look at quarterly changes in credit use indicators from 2005 to mid-2018 and to compare indicators across different areas.

Community Profiles

View historical information, maps, and demographic, economic, and lending data for metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) or portions of MSAs in the Third Federal Reserve District.

Updated information in the demographic and economic data section of each profile.

Consumer Resources

Find publications on credit-related topics.

Homeownership Counseling Study

The Effectiveness of Pre-Purchase Homeownership Counseling and Financial Management Skills

Publications & Videos

Spotlight on the Philadelphia Region:
This brief examines home repair needs by household and unit characteristics in the Philadelphia metro area.

How Are Cities Leveraging Opportunity Zones for Community Development? — Philadelphia as a Case Study

Enacted as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, Opportunity Zones are designed to spur economic development and job creation in economically distressed communities by providing tax benefits to investors who make eligible investments into these areas. Using Philadelphia as a case study, our research finds that gentrifying areas were much more likely to be designated as Opportunity Zones in the city, although these neighborhoods generally had higher levels of economic distress than not-selected areas.

Measuring and Understanding Home Repair Costs: A National Typology of Households

This report, published jointly by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia and PolicyMap, combines detailed, nationally representative survey data on housing quality issues with estimates of the costs of reasonable repairs to model the total costs of addressing substandard housing conditions nationwide. In a recent survey, more than one-third of households reported experiencing at least one housing problem, with the national cost of addressing reported deficiencies estimated at $126.9 billion in 2018.

The Effects of Gentrification on the Well- Being and Opportunity of Original Resident Adults and Children

We use new longitudinal census microdata to provide the first causal evidence of how gentrification affects a broad set of outcomes for original resident adults and children. Gentrification modestly increases out-migration, though movers are not made observably worse off and neighborhood change is driven primarily by changes to in-migration. At the same time, many original resident adults stay and benefit from declining poverty exposure and rising house values. Children benefit from increased exposure to higher-opportunity neighborhoods, and some are more likely to attend and complete college. Our results suggest that accommodative policies, such as increasing the supply of housing in high-demand urban areas, could increase the opportunity benefits we find, reduce out-migration pressure, and promote long-term affordability.

Opportunity Occupations Revisited: Exploring Employment for Sub-Baccalaureate Workers Across Metro Areas and Over Time

This report finds that opportunity employment — defined as employment accessible to workers without a bachelor’s degree and typically paying above the national annual median wage, adjusted for regional differences in consumer prices — accounts for 21.6 percent of total employment in the metro areas analyzed. The report also illustrates how the local mix of occupations, employers’ educational expectations, and the cost of living combine to expand or limit local opportunity relative to national conditions.

Browse conference summaries, Special Reports, Discussion Papers, and Cascade.