CENTER FOR APPLIED URBAN RESEARCH (CAUR

CAUR CONTINUES TO BUILD REGIONALLY AND LOCALLY RELEVANT DATA, PRODUCE RESEARCH REPORTS, AND DISSEMINATE INFORMATION THAT IS OF PARTICULAR INTEREST TO OUR COMMUNITY PARTNERS. CAUR has continued its data analytics support through several new projects and data visualization activities. Starting in Spring 2020, the Center began collecting and disseminating data related to initial unemployment filings in Pierce and King counties. The weekly longitudinal data, covering the months of January through August, were made available on our website for public consumption. This data documents the impact of COVID-19 on unemployment patterns by various industries, while comparing the two counties. It is clear from this data how COVID-19 disproportionately impacted low-wage jobs in the service sector.

In addition to this project, the Center produced an affordable housing study for Pierce County. This document was used by Pierce County Executive and Mayors as they discussed a regional approach to dealing with the growing problem of housing unaffordability in the region.

This year, we are also starting to conduct a research on a ‘digital landscape scan’ to inform data-driven policy to tackle inequities in access to the Internet and its usage.