Prosperity Playbook Toolkit
Improving Economic Mobility and Expanding Housing Affordability
As recent research has made evident, there are still many communities in all regions of the country where upward mobility is thwarted — where a child’s future earnings and adult outcomes are significantly impeded by the neighborhoods in which they live. Findings from that research support a balanced approach of empowering mobility to high opportunity neighborhoods while also reinvesting in and developing access to opportunity in all neighborhoods.
That is why HUD, in collaboration with partner organizations at the local and national levels, launched the Prosperity Playbook initiative. Through Prosperity Playbook, HUD is partnering with a handful of cities and their surrounding regions to plug into existing efforts that address improving economic mobility and expanding housing affordability. Our objectives are (1) to learn from communities that are already engaging and innovating in these areas and (2) to collaborate with communities in highlighting and amplifying promising approaches.
City Engagement
Prosperity Playbook fully recognizes the value of local leadership and local ideas. To underscore that point, Prosperity Playbook kicked off with a community tour to the initial five contributing places: the Kansas City (MO) region; the Twin Cities region; the Greater Atlanta region; the Denver region; and the San Francisco Bay Area. At each of these sessions, stakeholders from across each region — mayors, residents, philanthropy, developers, advocates — shared input. In this way, HUD leverages and strengthens current partnerships to accelerate existing activities, amplify the impact of those activities, and catalyze other communities to act. As one example of this work, Kansas City’s “Prosperity Playbook Blueprint” provides an in-depth look at the Prosperity Playbook process that took place in this region.
Diverse voices are critical to the success of Prosperity Playbook. Through the Community of Practice, Prosperity Playbook is engaging partners beyond the five initial regions. This growing network of leaders are dedicated to addressing the fundamental equity considerations that are at the forefront of the challenges in their cities. In tandem to the Community of Practice, the online Toolkit is a growing collection of resources sourced from the Prosperity Playbook network to share ideas and best practices with city leaders facing similar challenges across the country.
National Partners
Collaboration is the foundation of Prosperity Playbook. In addition to the Mayors and diverse stakeholders who have signed on to support Prosperity Playbook in their region, the initiative is also supported by a team of national partners.
Our national partners have been instrumental in shaping Prosperity Playbook by helping to facilitate discussions with regional leaders in each of the five initial participating regions. They are now working closely with HUD to continue supporting the Community of Practice and online Toolkit, as well as a suite of trainings, convenings, and other resources designed to help communities build knowledge and capacity on a range of housing affordability and economic mobility issues.