What Am I Working On

About three months ago, I posted about what I was working on at work,
to open the conversation on these topics. Indeed, I've gotten a
chance to hear from friends about their perspectives, and I've been
sharpened and educated accordingly. So I'd like to make this a
somewhat regular post topic. Here's what I'm working on now at work
(I won't repeat anything from last time that I happen to still be
working on, and for confidentiality's sake I have to blur some of the
details for some of these studies):

* Comparing a city's utilization of minority-owned and women-owned
contractors vs. the local availability of such businesses

* Evaluating banks' home and business lending and branch locations in
terms of its treatment of women and minorities

* Helping a state figure out how to create proper incentives for
developers to produce affordable housing units

* Helping a developer get a municipality involved in its affordable
housing development in terms of providing infrastructural investments

* Quantifying the 30-year economic impact of a series of commercial
developments along a formerly industrial waterfront site

* Helping two historic retail corridors rejuvenate the gap that
separates them so as to create a contiguous strip of street-level
activity

* Providing a blueprint for the next mayor of Philadelphia to work
with SEPTA and developers to initiate new development near transit
stops

* Helping a social service agency determine whether to expand at its
current site or to lease or buy a new site

* Creating a financial calculator to help a service provider
demonstrate to government agencies the cost savings of outsourcing
work to them

* Making the case for a waterfront management entity to expand its
territory, rather than have its host city bring those responsibilities
back in-house

* Analyzing a developer's proposed plans for a resort development to
determine the fiscal impact on the municipality in which it will be
located