Point Reno Advisory

The Name

Point Reno, in Washington, D.C.’s Fort Reno Park, is the highest natural point in the capital. It also happens to sit a few blocks from where I live, a regular destination for walks with our dog Charli (pictured). Living near D.C.’s high ground has its advantages: our Tenleytown neighborhood rarely floods. It also has its drawbacks: nearly every running route from the house ends with an uphill climb.

Point Reno, named for Union General Jesse Reno, is a metaphor for the vantage point I bring to my work. From this perch in Washington, I look out to the states, regions, and cities beyond it, and help their leaders see how shifting federal policy and inventive local practice shape residents’ economic and social well-being. Those places, much more so than D.C., are the true sources of national prosperity. Fittingly, Washington’s high point rises a mere 409 feet, the number stamped on the marker at Charli’s feet.

Charli beside the Point Reno survey marker in Fort Reno Park — Charli at the Point Reno marker.

What I Do

Advisory services for regional leaders

Federal Policy, Local Impact Translating shifting federal and state policy for funders, nonprofits, and lawmakers so they can mount effective, evidence-based responses.

In partnership with The Pittsburgh Foundation, I have helped regional philanthropic, nonprofit, and policy leaders understand how H.R. 1 and other federal shifts are impacting support for basic needs, and what steps they can take to adapt systems and support vulnerable families and communities.

Call to Action: Understanding and responding to federal policy risks (Presentation to the Pennsylvania Community Foundation Association)

For Voice of San Diego, San Diego’s leading nonprofit news publication, I have authored D.C. Explained, a regular column exploring how policies and politics in the second Trump administration and 119th Congress affect the region’s economy and communities, and why local leaders should more forcefully chart (and finance) their desired futures.

Regional Intelligence and Strategy Compiling the evidence and identifying the strategies and practices that strengthen regional cohesion amid federal and economic disruption.

As the artificial intelligence era began to dawn, midsized cities started to grapple with the possible implications for the industries that anchored their local economies and the workers who fueled them. I led an effort between Brookings and Louisville-area leaders that framed the potential challenges and opportunities, explored what benchmarking data on workers and jobs revealed, and articulated a resilience agenda for the region’s government, business, higher education, and civic sectors.

How Louisville can become a stronger and more equitable hub for AI and data economy jobs

I led a cohort of organizations from three U.S. regions working to develop economic indicator dashboards that could inspire and inform efforts to drive more inclusive local outcomes. That learning lab shaped projects such as the Orlando Economic Partnership’s Prosperity Scorecard and Detroit Future City’s Economic Equity Dashboard, and yielded a playbook that other regions have used to build their own inclusive indicators.

A roadmap to developing inclusive regional economic indicators

Economic and Social Well-Being Helping cities and regions chart durable strategies for greater economic and social health, from opportunity to shared prosperity.

I developed Brookings’s original Metro Monitor, an economic success framework and interactive data tool that provides decisionmakers in U.S. metro areas with a roadmap to understanding how their places and people are faring. Through the collective efforts of Brookings and others, it has become a foundation for how leading experts in regional economic development articulate and measure the goals of that practice.

My writing and analysis has illuminated how key social and demographic trends in regions — such as the rise of immigration in cities, the suburbanization of poverty, and spiraling income inequality — shape local economies and inform policy at all levels.

About

Alan Berube

I have worked with leaders in government, civic and business organizations, and philanthropy here in Washington and around the country to translate evidence about our changing economy and society into usable insights for helping families, communities, and regions prosper. For more than two decades, I worked at the Brookings Institution, helping lead its influential division on cities and regions. While there, I oversaw a team of world-class public policy experts, authored hundreds of Brookings publications, led projects in partnership with local leaders in dozens of regions, and co-authored a book, Confronting Suburban Poverty in America. More recently, I’ve served as senior vice president and advisor at the Policy & Innovation Center, a public policy research organization based in San Diego. Earlier in my career, I advised officials on tax and banking policies affecting low-income Americans at the U.S. Treasury Department, developed mixed-income housing strategies for the UK Treasury, and researched the impacts of federal and state budget and tax policies at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Insights from the high ground.

Advisory services for regional leaders

Alan Berube

Let’s talk about your region.