Essays on Opportunity Zones and Equitable Development

The U.S. Federal government has deployed place-based economic development policies since the 1980s in efforts to reverse persistent disinvestment and address uneven development in cities. Opportunity Zones (OZs) are the newest federal economic development tool that aims to attract private investments into low-income communities. In 2018, the Federal government authorized States’ OZ designations, making over 8,700 OZ census tracts eligible for investor incentives. While the program aims to bring investment to distressed neighborhoods, this goal is undermined by two structural facets of the program. First, the program has broad eligibility criteria which enables OZs to be designated in relatively high-value, high-opportunity areas. Second, the program relies on incentivizing private market actors who have financial motivations to target relatively better-off neighborhoods for their OZ investments. With these issues in mind, this dissertation aims to 1) propose a method to better target place-based subsidies to align with equitable development goals, 2) challenge the neoliberal ideological backing for the design of the OZ program, and 3) assess where and how OZs are impacting real-estate markets. These aims are pursued in three essays. The first essay presents an index of development potential that accounts for hyper-localized real estate trends and spatial context to gauge the future ability of areas to attract private investment. The index is applied to Chicago’s OZ designations and finds that despite Chicago’s efforts to align OZs to areas of high need, it ultimately designated some OZs in areas that have among the highest development potential in the city. The second essay traces the neoliberal ideological roots of OZs and connects this ideology to an array of challenges noted by local governments to enact equitable development goals. The third essay assesses the impact of OZs on single-family real-estate prices in a hedonic pricing approach to determine where and how the program impacts residential real-estate markets. This essay finds that OZs investments led to short-term price reductions that are concentrated in lower poverty zones, but questions remain about the long-term affordability of areas receiving OZ investments. These essays provide insights into implementing place-based economic development policies more equitably.Doctor of Philosoph