Opportunity Starts At Home

David Williams is the Policy Director of Opportunity Insights, the new research and policy institute led by world-renowned economists Raj Chetty (Harvard University), Nathaniel Hendren (Harvard University), and John Friedman (Brown University). In this episode, David discusses the fading American Dream, the work of his organization, the recent research showing how neighborhoods drive life outcomes, the implications for housing policy, “opportunity bargain” neighborhoods, and the latest Opportunity Atlas interactive map where users can search any neighborhood in the country and see where children have the best chance of climbing the income ladder as adults. "We’re trying to use big data to inform policy,” said Williams. “Neighborhoods are hyper-local. When kids are growing up in a certain place on a certain block, there is something about who they are growing up around, what they see, and those experiences that they’re exposed to that are extremely important. And that exposure is different just a mile awa