About

Three dashboards of local data

The Economy in Place data visualization platform enables place-based practitioners, policymakers, journalists, and researchers to examine the evolving relationships between economic conditions, people, and places. It tracks conditions in 700+ commuting zones across the U.S., synthesizing a range of data into interactive dashboards. The platform paints detailed pictures of economic conditions and policy interventions within regions, equipping users with comprehensive, up-to-date data about these local labor markets. You can read more about the motivation behind the platform in our piece about why Place Matters.

• The Economic Conditions dashboard provides data on economic indicators (joblessness, earning inequality, median wages, etc.).
• The Policy Tracker dashboard provides data on various place-based transfers, classified under different domains – workforce development, local strategy and planning, business incentives, R&D – as well as individual means-tested transfers to enable comparisons.
• The Energy Economy dashboard highlights the impacts of the green energy transition on local labor markets, and provides data on energy employment, earnings, and renewable potential .

The dashboards include decades of data, and will be updated as new data comes in.

Practical for place-based practitioners

The Place Profiles feature makes a range of data (demographic indicators, economic conditions, policy flows) available in an integrated manner at the commuting zone level. It also enables comparisons with neighboring and similar regions.

Building a body of knowledge

• Distilling insights, trends, and narratives from the data: The platform includes a blog with posts about basic concepts, national trends, and deep dives into specific places. The blog will be regularly updated by the Reimagining the Economy team as well as local practitioners writing about their regions.
• A repository of research on place-based policies: The Bibliography serves as a database of this vast literature, which we have categorized into streams and themes. We also highlight Reimagining the Economy's research on place-based policies.