Urban across the Country

Urban’s researchers partner with state and local leaders to provide the evidence, tools, and support they need to improve lives and strengthen communities. This work includes strategic advising to translate research into action, program evaluations to measure effectiveness, and research and data analysis to inform decisionmaking. Our experts develop custom data tools and modeling to support equitable resource allocation and lead community-engaged research and convenings to ensure policies reflect local priorities.

Use this page to explore Urban’s work. Search by region to see examples of our research, and filter by evidence and products to narrow results by topic or type of work.

Dive deeper into your state and community with our data tools. View highlighted tools below, select “Data tools” under “Filter by Product Types,” or head directly to our data tools page.

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State and community data tools
Explore our work by state
A child care worker squats to put shoes on a child.
The child care workforce holds demanding jobs that take a toll on their physical and mental health. Yet because of low wages and high rates of uninsurance, many cannot access essential health care benefits.
A doctor and patient sitting down.
DC’s first-in-the-nation HealthCare4ChildCare program provides free and low-cost health insurance for child care workers and can be a model for other states and cities.
Research Report Housing Finance At A Glance: A Monthly Chartbook, October 2025
Housing Finance At A Glance is a monthly reference guide for mortgage and housing market data. It includes over 80 curated and updated figures describing current trends in the US housing finance market, including housing affordability, credit availability, serious delinquency rates, and mortgage
Brief Assessing Marketplace Coverage for Parents and Children
This brief provides estimates of Marketplace coverage among parents and children in recent years from two nationally representative surveys. We also assess coverage among parents by state Medicaid expansion status and differences in health care access and utilization among parents and children by
Research Report Health Care for the Child Care Workforce
This report describes the history of HC4CC, its implementation successes and challenges, current participation patterns and experiences, perspectives on early outcomes, and future goals.
A family getting into their car.
Ensuring federal data and statistical agencies like the Bureau of Labor Statistics remain open, independent, and objective is essential to economic growth and prosperity.
Workers installing solar pannels
A new analysis finds workforce corps serving opportunity youth likely also have high returns on investment. At a time of corps funding cuts and when policymakers must determine how to wisely invest taxpayer dollars, these new data could help inform funding decisions.
Two childen in sweaters reach for carrot sticks in a portable lunch container that's being held out by a third person, with whom they share a bench outside.
The government shutdown meant uncertainty for the more than 40 million beneficiaries of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).