Bruce Katz

Bruce Katz is a vice president at the Brookings Institution and founding director of the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program. The program seeks to redefine the challenges facing cities and metropolitan areas by publishing cutting-edge research on major demographic, market, development, and governance trends.

Mr. Katz regularly advises national, state, regional and municipal leaders on policy reforms that advance the competitiveness of metropolitan areas. He focuses particularly on reforms that promote the revitalization of central cities and older suburbs and enhance the ability of these places to attract, retain and grow the middle class. In 2006, he received the prestigious Heinz Award in Public Policy for his contributions to urban and metropolitan America. Recently, he served on the Obama transition team and as a Senior Advisor to HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan. In 2009, he received the Penn Institute for Urban Research Leadership Award, which is awarded annually to urban leaders who have made outstanding contributions to urban scholarship and to building cities that successfully respond to the challenges of the 21st Century.

Mr. Katz is a frequent writer and commentator on urban and metropolitan issues. He is the editor or coeditor of several books on transportation, demographics and regionalism, including Taking the High Road (Brookings Press, 2005), Redefining Urban and Suburban America (Brookings Press, 2003), and Reflections on Regionalism (Brookings Press, 2000). His op-eds and articles have appeared in a wide range of major national and regional newspapers including The Atlantic Monthly, Baltimore Sun, Boston Globe, BusinessWeek, Christian Science Monitor, Hartford Courant, Philadelphia Inquirer, Washington Post, New York Times, and Los Angeles Times. Mr. Katz frequently appears on TV and radio, including National Public Radio’s Morning Edition, PBS’s The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and CNN.

He is also a visiting professor of social policy at the London School of Economics. Before joining Brookings, Mr. Katz served as Chief of Staff to Henry G. Cisneros, former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Mr. Katz has also served as the staff director of the Senate Subcommittee on Housing and Urban Affairs.

Mr. Katz is a graduate of Brown University and Yale Law School.