elizabeth a duke : community voices – promising practices for neighborhood stabilization speech by ms elizabeth a duke, member of the board of governors of the federal reserve system, at the 2011 federal reserve community affairs research conference, arlington, virginia, 28 april 2011. * * * the federal reserve is best known for its role in the national economy and monetary policy. but through the 12 federal reserve banks across the country, it also gets involved in efforts to support local communities and their economies. this work helps to enhance our understanding of the pace of economic recovery and further creates a backdrop for a national dialogue about common problems and their potential solutions. over the last several years, every community across the country has felt the effects of the financial crisis. foreclosed, vacant, and abandoned properties threaten neighborhoods nationwide, and community leaders are working to stabilize those neighborhoods. while the problem touches every community, it doesn ’ t look the same in each because it ’ s shaped by the circumstances that prevailed in those neighborhoods before the crisis hit. neighborhood stabilization efforts are critical, now more than ever, as not all communities will be stabilized without intervention. this is because the market will not correct equally in all places. through the 12 reserve banks and the board, the federal reserve system facilitates community development activities as communities strive to repair the damage wrought by the financial crisis. we participate in local collaboration efforts, help evaluate what ’ s working and what ’ s not, and highlight promising practices. we do this by combining research and local outreach, and also by bringing together financial institutions, policymakers, and community leaders. introduction of three federal reserve community development videos while the fed conducts all kinds of research analyzing economic trends, we ’ re also looking for new ways to identify and showcase replicable models. to that end, i ’ d like to share with you a series of stories we ’ ve produced that highlight various challenges faced by communities and targeted strategies to deal with them. everyone has heard about the foreclosure crisis, but it helps to see what it really looks like. so, we ’ re featuring three very different cities in a series of video reports that will be accessible on the federal reserve ’ s website. these “ reports from the field ” showcase three promising stabilization efforts that highlight grassroots innovation and collaboration. cleveland cleveland neighborhoods face five decades of population loss, outmigration of jobs, and urban sprawl, in addition to the more recent wave of foreclosures. despite these persistent challenges, city leaders have responded with dynamic

terms of the issue of new currency ; the banknotes and the coins with the images of monarchs and presidents and the great and the good. some consider the milestones are the laws which have prescribed the duties and powers of the bank, one account even citing the legendary uk bills of exchange act of 1882, the model on which subsequent legislation for mauritius was built, followed by the banking ordinances of colonial times and then the banking and companies acts of the parliament of mauritius. others see the story in terms of the changing structure of the bank to respond to the need for implementing those laws and providing the operational mechanisms increasingly adapted to the needs of modern banking. they cite for example the coming of departments for research and for information technology, which strengthen our back - office capacities and with the administration department itself, serve the needs of the continually - developing frontline departmental functions of the bank ; the departments concerned with financial markets, with accounting and budgeting, with banking and currency and with the supervision of financial institutions. other people, when you ask them about the significant events in the life of the bank, will talk of appointments, disappointments, personal careers, departures, marriages, deaths, fires, even a strike ; these are the sagas of the internal and personal life of the people here who make the bank a working living organism at the service of the state and the people. beyond the internal workings of the bank itself there are other perspectives too, those of the wider banking and commercial community in mauritius, our investors and creditors, the global banking community, the governments who have accorded us our role and last but not least the citizens of this country on whose trust we depend. in mapping the history of the bank over the coming months we shall try to bring together these strands in the real life story of this complex institution, warts and all. at the silver anniversary of 25 years of the central bank in 1992, the then prime minister, now president 18, had this to say about the place of the bank in mauritian society ; the bank is, he said, “ a centre of moral authority, an authority capable of expressing constructive criticisms in moments of exaggerated optimism or exaggerated pessimism. to succeed in this mission the bank required from the outset public friendship and support and public confidence ” indeed, as we well know, trust and confidence are the primordial qualities for a central bank : vishnu lutchmeenaraidoo, deputy prime minister, minister of finance from 1983 to 1991