The inaugural National Opportunity Zones Academy is comprised of five participating cities around the country, and also includes Smart Growth America/LOCUS’s previous/ongoing work with six communities in Massachusetts. Learn about some of these 11 communities and their Opportunity Zone challenges and Academy goals below.

Chicago, IL

The City of Chicago and Cook County’s neighboring suburbs are home to 181 federally-designated Opportunity Zones. Since these designations came into effect, Chicago has organized its leadership and economic, community, and real estate development resources around Opportunity Zones’ potential for creating jobs and local wealth in the city’s most vulnerable census tracts. The Chicago Community Loan Fund (CCLF) has been tasked with organizing key stakeholders with existing projects, programs, partnerships, and other initiatives in newly designated Opportunity Zones around inclusive development and investment strategies there.

Moving forward, Chicago would like to further develop the tools, skills, and knowledge necessary for articulating a representative, geographically diverse equitable development project pipeline to a national network of social impact developers and investors. 

 

Norfolk, VA

The City of Norfolk is home to sixteen (16) federally-designated Opportunity Zones. Since their inception in 2017, Mayor Kenny Alexander and his economic development, planning, and real estate teams have prioritized capacity-building for city staff and education for local residents and businesses in an effort to position the city as a national model for equitable Opportunity Zone management and development. 

The city would like to further understand the possible mechanisms and strategies for its community to achieve these equitable outcomes, including building equitable development project pipelines and encouraging minority and legacy business from having participated in Opportunity Zone activity. 

 

New Orleans, LA

The City of New Orleans is home to twenty-five federally-designated Opportunity Zones; these census tracts were selected to capture short-term Opportunity Zone interest in the city’s mature real estate markets and to help further its long-term commitment to equitable development and inclusive economic growth. 

The City of New Orleans worked on developing an Opportunity Zone strategy that supports its long-term goals around economic development, economic mobility, and revitalization without residential or commercial displacement, alongside an equitable development vision and framework scalable beyond the lifespan of the Opportunity Zone incentive..This strategy will include creating community-backed visions for transformative development projects on publicly-controlled Opportunity Zone sites, encouraging the growth of local Opportunity Funds that support sustainable infrastructure, green energy, and public transportation, and aligning the benefits of the Opportunity Zone tax incentive with existing real estate and economic development incentives. 

 

Greater Miami and the Beaches, FL

Miami-Dade County is home to 67 federally-designated Opportunity Zones, both in the City of Miami and its outlying neighborhoods. Since their designations in 2018, both the City of Miami and the Miami-Dade Beacon Council have been overseeing all Opportunity Zone education and activity across the city and county. At the county level, the Beacon Council has been working to educate residents and county commissioners on the mechanics of Opportunity Zones and their role in future economic development and investment activity throughout the county. Concurrently, the City of Miami has been working on defining their role in local Opportunity Zone activity. 

 

Pittsburgh, PA

The City of Pittsburgh is home to 27 federally-designated Opportunity Zones; city leadership focused its Opportunity Zone attention on internal education, capacity-building, and consolidating Opportunity Zone resources into a publicly-available web platform for residents, businesses, developers, investors, and outside communities and organizations to access. 

The City of Pittsburgh engaged in the Opportunity Zone Academy on account of interest inunderstanding the ways in which its leadership can leverage Opportunity Zones alongside the Pittsburgh Housing Opportunity Fund, Microenterprise Loan Fund, Equitable Empowerment Program, and other longstanding small business, storefront, and incubator initiatives to help further the city’s equitable development goals and alleviate residential and commercial displacement concerns. Specifically, the City would like to build its Opportunity Zone capacity and operationalize its Opportunity Zone strategy in a way that drives economic growth, expands attainable housing supply, encourages legacy and other Opportunity Zone business participation and development, and revitalizes neighborhoods within a responsible and equitable development and investment framework.