National

HR&A supported the New Urban Mobility Alliance (NUMO) to leverage the historic influx of federal infrastructure funding as an opportunity to champion a paradigm shift in how communities approach infrastructure investment. As part of this effort, HR&A supported 15 cities to design projects that reconnect communities, led workshops on measuring and mitigating displacement, and developed the Good Start Toolkit, which offers guidance for working with communities on similar efforts across the country.

As part of the Residential Retrofits for Energy Equity (R2E2) partnership, HR&A is providing training and capacity building assistance for awardees of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Buildings Upgrade Prize (Buildings UP). Separate from this work, R2E2 provides technical assistance to state and local governments, community-based organizations, and other entities to jumpstart energy retrofit programs for both single family and multifamily low- to moderate-income housing (“LMI” housing), especially in frontline communities.

HR&A collaborated with Brookings Metro, Gensler, and Cara Eckholm Studio to develop a comprehensive study on office-to-residential conversions across six U.S. cities for the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). This research provides cities with actionable strategies to address housing shortages, repurpose distressed office markets, and revitalize downtowns through data-driven conversion approaches.

HR&A conducted an independent study for Uber Technologies analyzing rideshare driver net earnings in Chicago, Philadelphia, and Portland and benchmarking those earnings against comparable occupations in each market. Our comprehensive analysis revealed that across all three cities, Uber driver net earnings ranged from $21.29 to $23.01 per hour after costs.

The Knight Foundation engaged HR&A to evaluate their philanthropic investments in downtown revitalization across nine U.S. cities. Through comprehensive data collection and analysis, HR&A assessed the effectiveness of the foundation’s priority grants, investigated the sustainability of supported organizations, and identified critical revitalization levers that could be applied to any city. This evaluation provided Knight Foundation with essential insights to guide future investment decisions and promote equitable economic development.