The Opportunity Zone program was created in 2017 to encourage investment and economic growth in low-income communities. The program became permanent this year, and governors and state chief executives nationwide are beginning to select the next round of Opportunity Zones. Brett Theodos and Brady Meixell, community and economic development experts at the Urban Institute, spoke with Next City about how leaders can maximize the program’s communal benefits. Theodos suggests local governments “set aside their disappointments with the Opportunity Zone policy and its significant limitations and instead enter into the process of helping determine, given what this thing is and what it’s going to do, where will it do the most possible good and the least possible harm?”

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