Housing Affordability & Community Development

The Harvard Law School Urbanists welcome Prabal Chakrabarti to speak about housing and community development in Boston. The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston in the Regional and Community Outreach department “focuses on economic growth for low and moderate income people.” Chakrabarti will provide a thoughtful empirical perspective on the affordability crisis currently plaguing urban centers in the United States and paths forward for cities to balance housing and economic development. This event will interest students interested in housing law, homelessness, urban economic development, and cities issues generally.

Prabal Chakrabarti has published and presented research on community development topics such as affordable housing, venture capital in secondary cities, and urban business development. He plays a key role in designing and implementing a competition to revitalize smaller cities called the Working Cities Challenge. He has edited volumes on the future of the Community Reinvestment Act and on addressing challenges from foreclosed properties.
Previously, Prabal was at the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, where he led a research effort under Harvard Business School Professor Michael Porter to measure economic competitiveness in America’s inner cities. Prabal previously served in the U.S. Treasury in economic policy and he co-wrote a UNDP report Unleashing Entrepreneurship: Making Business Work for the Poor.
Prabal holds graduate degrees from MIT and Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar, and a B.S. from the University of Illinois, where he was a Truman Scholar. He serves on the Marshall Scholarship Selection Committee and on the board of directors of the Children’s Investment Fund.

Presented with co-sponsorship from the HLS Homelessness Coalition, DOS, and the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.