City Talks: Opportunity Zones with Bruce Katz

In 2017, the Opportunity Zones incentive was established in the USA in order to spur private investment in low-income, ‘left-behind’ areas across the nation. By allowing investors to re-invest their unrealized capital gains into dedicated Opportunity Funds, the incentive aims to connect communities with the capital they need in order to thrive.

Given the significant interest already shown by investors, it is possible that this new tax incentive could attract substantial private capital, which, when paired with thoughtful planning and aligned local leadership, has the potential to engender inclusive, sustained growth in struggling areas.

But how exactly does the incentive work? And could the UK think about setting up its own version?

To explore these questions, Andrew Carter is joined by Bruce Katz, who is the director of the Nowak Metro Finance lab at Drexel University, former director and co-founder of the Metropolitan Policy Programme at Brookings Institution, author of The New Localism with Jeremy Nowak as well as The Metropolitan Revolution with Jennifer Bradley.

This episode is part of the Centre for Cities City Talks series. Please rate, review and share the episode if you enjoyed it.