Benjamin Kraft

Century of change: Where we are after 100 years of homebuilding in Montgomery County

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An analysis of Montgomery County’s property assessment database over the past century shows homebuilding consistently increased before peaking in the 1980s and has since slowed substantially. The data also show how the composition of the housing stock has changed over time, from overwhelmingly single-family to many more townhouses and apartments.

From before the 1920s through the 1980s, each successive decade saw more homes built than the decade before, except for the 1970s. Then, starting in the 1990s, the trend reversed, with a sharp drop-off in new homes from the 1980s. The decline continued through 2019. Data for 2020 to 2022 suggest that the county may be on pace for another decade of decline.  

Repositioning Montgomery County for Prosperity, Part 3: Abundant Housing for Inclusive Growth

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The previous two blogs in this series summarized the Navigating Income Shifts in Montgomery County: Towards Shared Prosperity research brief that describes how disproportionate changes along the income distribution underlie Montgomery County’s stagnating incomes. The low-income population has been increasing rapidly, while the middle-income segment is shrinking, and the high-income population, though growing in absolute terms, has not increased as a share of the population.

This final blog in the series discusses why this trend is a problem and what Montgomery County can do about it. As a reminder, the expansion of the low-income population, by itself, is not a problem. Rather, it should be seen as a success and a validation of Montgomery County’s welcoming and diverse values, … Continue reading

Repositioning Montgomery County for Prosperity, Part 2: Montgomery County’s Income Shifts in Regional and National Contexts

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The previous blog in this series described how income-based population dynamics are shifting within Montgomery County. This blog compares these dynamics with those in Montgomery County’s regional neighbors and other large counties across the nation.

Income Change in the Washington, DC Region

The previous blog noted that Montgomery County’s low- and middle-income populations both shifted by five percentage points, in opposite directions, from 2005 to 2022. The low-income share of Montgomery County’s population rose from 25% to 30%, while the middle-income share fell from 23% to 18%.

This shift may not seem significant, but it stands out in the region. Compared with the United States as a whole and the 10 largest jurisdictions near Montgomery County, these compositional changes … Continue reading

Repositioning Montgomery County for Prosperity, Part 1: Montgomery County’s Income Shifts

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Montgomery County is a great place to live, work, and visit, but it faces economic challenges. One of the most serious problems is that residents’ incomes are stagnating, which is a sign that overall prosperity and quality of life might be stagnating also. The county’s median household income has not kept up with inflation since 2005.1 The third quarter 2023 Montgomery County Economic Indicators Briefing 2 noted that Montgomery County had the slowest growth rate in per capita personal income from 2004 to 2021 among 30 similarly sized counties, barely keeping up with inflation.3

But these top-line statistics don’t explain the full story. While multiple factors could underlie this stagnancy, one trend we can examine is how Montgomery County’s … Continue reading

The Community Equity Index: A new approach to measuring equity in Montgomery County

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Montgomery County is a great place to live, work, learn, visit, and grow—but residents have different experiences depending on where they live and their socioeconomic background. One of the most important parts of our work planning for the future of every county community is understanding how socioeconomic conditions differ from neighborhood to neighborhood.

What is the Community Equity Index?

The Community Equity Index (CEI) – a new Montgomery Planning tool – is a composite measure of five indicators (defined below) of how the county’s socioeconomic diversity is distributed, or which neighborhoods have concentrated advantage or disadvantage and which neighborhoods are representative of the county’s diversity. The CEI allows Montgomery Planning, our partner agencies, and the public to better … Continue reading

The Opportunity Insights Project and Economic Mobility in Montgomery County, Part 2: A Closer Look at Neighborhoods

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Part 1 of this blog series used data from the Opportunity Insights project to show that children raised in Montgomery County were able to move further up the economic ladder than children growing up in other parts of the United States. However, the blog also showed that there is a strong correlation between economic mobility   and race and ethnicity, and it suggested that, depending on how the population is divided, the prosperity of places does not always coincide with the prosperity of the people living in them. This blog explores these issues in more detail by focusing on the county’s neighborhoods and shows that economic mobility across the County and within neighborhoods differs significantly based on race and ethnicity.

… Continue reading

The Opportunity Insights Project and Economic Mobility in Montgomery County

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Montgomery County Planning works to create thriving places across the county. This goal is reflected in our proposed General Plan update, Thrive Montgomery 2050, master plans, functional plans, and other special studies.

But how do we know if a place is indeed thriving?  We often use publicly available data from agencies like the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to analyze shifts in key indicators of an area’s economic vitality.

Now let’s zoom in on the map and ask a deeper question: do thriving neighborhoods help the people living in them to thrive? Put another way, do neighborhoods thrive because the people living in them improved their economic status, or because people of higher … Continue reading

Does Montgomery County Have What it Takes to be Economically Resilient During & After COVID-19?

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Keys to Building Economic Resilience in Montgomery County Post-Pandemic

As we await post-pandemic life and speculate about our economic future, the idea of economic resilience—how quickly and easily we as individuals and society can adapt to and recover from a devastating economic blow—is on everyone’s minds. So let’s examine the idea of economic resilience: what the term “resilience” means for a local economy, what characteristics and conditions make local economies resilient in the face of economic challenges and how Montgomery County can position itself to be more resilient.

Local Economies, Adaptive Resilience, and Relationships

Economic resilience is adaptive resilience. This is different from the type of resilience we expect from our physical infrastructure, which “bounces back” to normal functioning … Continue reading

COVID-19 and the Economy: People Employed in Montgomery County’s Service, Retail, and Hospitality Occupations and Industries Hit Hard by Pandemic

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Several weeks into the COVID-19 pandemic, it has already become cliché to say that we are living in unprecedented times, but it is still too early to understand exactly how severe the economic damage will be, and how it will effect Montgomery County and its residents. While hundreds of thousands are already suffering the direct health effects of the COVID-19, the indirect economic fallout from the near closure of the economy is also becoming apparent. From the weeks ending March 21 through April 11, over 22 million people filed for Federal unemployment insurance in the U.S., including over 38,600 people in Montgomery County. This volume has far surpassed all previous records. The $350 billion Paycheck Protection Program created by … Continue reading

Technology’s Influence on the Work of the Future

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Fears of robots replacing humans are overblown. A diverse and adaptable economy is key to keeping Montgomery County competitive and equitable.

There has been no shortage of foreboding warnings in the media about the economic and social dangers posed by robots and artificial intelligence technologies. With titles like “The Robots are Coming,” “The Rise of the Robots” and “The Robocalypse,” this coverage has sparked collective anxiety over the future of work and whether human labor will eventually be displaced in an automated economy.

However, technology is not destiny. With thoughtful, proactive planning, the harmful consequences of 21st century technology can be avoided and opportunities for increasing fulfillment at work, income equity and quality of life can be seized.

This … Continue reading