Staff Writings

Lost Values: A Study Of Predatory Lending In Philadelphia

A presentation by Ira Goldstein to the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission's Land Use and Housing Committee on predatory lending in Philadelphia.

Update On Mortgage Originations, Delinquency and Foreclosures In Maryland

A presentation by Ira Goldstein of some of the findings from a study by TRF on behalf of the Baltimore Homeownership Preservation Coalition (BHPC).

Update On Mortgage Delinquencies and Foreclosures In Pennsylvania

A presentation by Ira Goldstein to the Pennsylvania Association of Realtors on mortage delinquencies and foreclosures in the state.

Lost Values: A Study of Predatory Lending in Philadelphia

A presentation by Ira Goldstein offering an overview of TRF's study Lost Values: A Study of Predatory Lending in Philadelphia.

Market Value Analysis - Using Data to Identify New Investment Opportunities in Low and Moderate Income Markets

A presentation by Ira Goldstein at the Opportunity Finance Network's 2006 conference in Washington, DC. The presentation offers a review of TRF's Market Value Analysis (MVA) tool and provides an example of the MVA that was developed with the City of Baltimore.

One Industry's Risk is Another Community's Loss: The Impact of Clustered Mortgage Foreclosures on Neighborhood Property Values in Philadelphia

A presentation by Ira Goldstein at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia's conference on Reinventing Older Communities: People, Places Markets in April 2006. The presentation offers a glimpse of a study that found that increasing numbers of foreclosure filings have an independent and statistically significant negative impact on neighborhood home prices.

Market Value Analysis: Understanding Where and How to Invest Limited Resources

Article by Ira Goldstein and Sean Closkey on TRF's proprietary tool, the Market Value Analysis (MVA) for Bridges, the quarterly publication of the St.Louis Federal Reserve Bank.

Predatory Lending and Mortgage Foreclosures in Philadelphia

A presentation by Ira Goldstein at the Equal Justice Conference of the American Bar Association and the National Legal Aid and Defender Association in 2006. The presentation offers a look at key findings of TRF's study of predatory lending and mortgage foreclosures of residential properties across Philadelphia.

Entrepreneurship in Low- and Moderate-Income Communities

Concluding remarks by Jeremy Nowak at a conference on Entrepreneurship in Low- and Moderate Income Communities hosted by the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank and The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in November, 2005

Keeping People in Their Homes: A Follow Up

A presentation by Ira Goldstein on homeownership in Pennsylvania. The presentation looks at some of the findings of TRF's foreclosure studies in Pennsylvania and offers a glimpse into the causes for the rising foreclosure rate. The presentation was made at Fannie Mae's Fair Lending Conference in September, 2005.

Bringing Subprime Mortgages to Market and the Effects on Lower-Income Borrowers

A working paper by Ira Goldstein on how some borrowers end up with subprime mortgages and the extent to which those loans serve the true financial needs of those borrowers. Published by Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies, the paper was first presented at Building Assets, Building Credit: A Symposium on Improving Financial Services in Low-Income Communities, held at Harvard University on November 18-19, 2003. (February 2004)

Civic Lessons: How CDFIs Can Apply Market Realities to Poverty Alleviation

Jeremy Nowak discusses the social and economic trends that influence poverty alleviation policies and strategies, the result of these trends, the argument that community development financial institutions (CDFIs) can be one source from which regional civic intermediaries can be created, and examples of CDFI regional intermediary roles. (March 2001)

Nothing Left to Lose: Only Radical Strategies Can Help America’s Most Distressed Cities

Edward Hill and Jeremy Nowak first called this article "Cities Forgotten by Their Regional Economies." But as they reflected more on the competitive position of distressed central cities, they realized that the title was wrong. Cities have not been forgotten by their regional economies; rather, all too often, the opposite has happened. Distressed central cities have not, or perhaps cannot, react to changes in their current competitive positions within their regional economies. (Summer 2000)

Taking the Superhighway: Technology is Transforming All Aspects of Community

Jeremy Nowak argues that the challenge for community development may be to position itself as a form of both economic and social connectivity — as the civic glue that promotes neighborhood and regional well-being. This article first appeared in Enterprise Quarterly, a publication of the Enterprise Foundation. (Summer 2000)

Expanding the Scope of Community Development

Jeremy Nowak discusses how the more than four decades of suburban growth have moved demographic, political, and economic power from central cities toward their suburban counties. The change can be seen in the spatial segmentation by income and race, in the phenomenal growth of new businesses in edge cities, in how public infrastructure dollars are allocated, and in how state and national political parties organize campaigns and party platforms. (Jan/Feb 1998)