achieving the objective, particularly in areas and among populations where biases and negative perceptions may have contributed to market failures, helps people improve their financial standing, regardless of their current economic status. for nearly four decades, numerous policies and programs have been implemented with the intent of increasing economic opportunity. a variety of management and funding strategies have been implemented, ranging from federal government appropriations to debt and equity financing from private sources. despite the broad spectrum of programs, the length of time they have been in place, and the array of funding participants, empirical research quantifying their impact is rare, regardless of whether government agencies, nonprofit organizations, or private entities sponsor the programs. the lack of empirical data is particularly regrettable in the case of government - sponsored programs, because quantifying the impact of these programs is crucial to the legislative process. when a bill is proposed in congress, the nature of the problem and the factors presumed to be contributing to that problem typically are explicitly stated. and generally included is a projection of the outcomes that would indicate success. this process of problem diagnosis, program justification, and projection of results, if fully embraced, provides a framework for assessing a program's value. the program can be judged worthwhile when the data demonstrate that the benefits exceed the costs, including the opportunity costs of any investment. even with such a framework, conducting research on community development and economic empowerment programs can be challenging, in part because the effects these programs intend to achieve are often quite difficult to measure and may not become apparent for relatively long periods of time. initiatives aimed at addressing complex economic and social problems that were decades in the making most likely require many years to achieve their goals. also, virtually no specifically defined standards exist for monitoring the value of social and economic improvement programs. for community development researchers, the challenge is to develop parameters for objectively assessing the value of their programs. for example, the measures that affordable - housing organizations use could illustrate the extent to which their programs have, or have not, increased homeownership rates and property values, reduced crime, improved school performance, or spurred new private - sector investment in a disadvantaged neighborhood. research must isolate the variables that best convey the impact of a program, define the specific data that must be collected, and develop a system for maintaining and retrieving the data over time. in other words, the challenge is to quantify the marginal effect of a program. the value of such a system is clear. so too, however, is the

complexity of creating it. consider, for example, the difficulty of measuring the marginal impact of a financial education program. it requires unique data collection techniques and unconventional tracking systems to gauge the benefit that an individual derives from making informed financial decisions that resulted from that educational program. socioeconomic trends for underserved populations and communities the relative paucity of data and research on community development programs has limited the ability to fully demonstrate the programs'impact and to credibly differentiate those that are effective from those that are not. undeniably, impressive local community development initiatives have been undertaken, and individual testimonials reveal advances in the economic well - being of many of the beneficiaries. however, the absence of formal data collection and research for the numerous neighborhood revitalization efforts over the past several decades has resulted in a reliance on mostly anecdotal reporting at a neighborhood or individual level. anecdotal information is not without value. it offers clues to the construction of a more - formal statistical analysis. but, as i am sure all of you know from experience, anecdotes are selective and can convey a false message about the success or failure of a program. given the lack of data that can be used to measure the success of new initiatives, the inclination is to examine the data that does exist to identify trends in areas where community development organizations have been a consistent presence for some time. when broad positive trends cannot be completely attributed to conventional market forces, perhaps community development is at least a partial explanation. since community development initiatives focus on traditionally underserved populations - lower - income families and communities - economic indicators relating to these markets may offer some insight into the influence of local economic and social programs. for example, according to a 2003 study by the brookings institution, the number of people living in high - poverty neighborhoods decreased 24 percent between 1990 and 2000. much more dramatic improvements occurred in some cities, such as detroit, where the decrease was 75 percent. in addition, the report found that concentrated poverty decreased among all racial and ethnic groups, with the percentage of african - americans living in high - poverty neighborhoods declining from 30 percent in 1990 to 19 percent in 2000. these data present an encouraging picture of improvement in the economic condition of very low - income families and communities. the data also reveal gains in homeownership among low - income and minority populations. the federal reserve board's 2001 survey of consumer finances ( scf ) concluded that, between 1998 and 2001