Detroit's Future Is Looking Brighter
Detroit Free Press, November 6, 2006

Study Shows Miami's Inner-City Potential
Miami Herald, November 5, 2006

Nontraditional Market Analyses: Dismantling Barriers to Retail Development in Underserved Neighborhoods
ICSC Research Review, Vol.13, No.3, 2006

By the Numbers: Data and Measurement in Community Economic Development
Speech given by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke at the Greenlining Institute's Thirteenth Annual Economic Development Summit, April 20, 2006

Urban Regeneration: Lessons from America
Lending Strategy, April 13, 2006

The Immigrant Dollar: A Driving Force at Gulfgate
The Houston Chronicle, April 9, 2006

View the Santa Ana DrillDown Reports
View the Santa Ana Press Release

Image Upgrade for Santa Ana's Core
The Orange County Register, February 7, 2006

View the Oakland DrillDown Reports
View the Oakland Press Release

New Report Paints Brighter Picture of Oakland
San Francisco Chronicle, August 23rd, 2005

Data Detail Vibrancy of Oakland's Poor Areas
Oakland Tribune, August 23rd, 2005

Study Finds Hope in Oakland
Contra Costa Times, August 22nd, 2005

City tries hard sell on retail sites: Mayor makes case to mall developers
Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 31, 2005

Houston Strikes It Big with DrillDown
Federal Reserve E-Perspectives, Volume 3, Issue 4, 2003

Retail Potential Found in 2 Areas
Washington Post, July 18, 2002

Wulfe & Co. ready to open gate on mall redevelopment project
Houston Business Journal, May 17, 2002

". . . Wulfe turned to Social Compact, a marketing information firm in Washington, D.C., to check the data. It's an unusual marketing information company -- nonprofit with a board composed of top executives from major companies."

"Social Compact is now studying the Gulfgate neighborhoods with a report due in a couple of weeks. It's using data from property tax rolls, credit bureaus, building permits, cable television and cellular phone billing addresses and vehicle registrations. It's working through existing community organizations to gain cooperation from residents. Social Compact then modifies the sophisticated business market analysis models designed for suburban markets to reflect the different characteristics of the inner city."

More to Gulfgate than meets the eye
Houston Chronicle, June 2001

". . . These are among the striking findings of Social Compact, an unconventional market research organization that has developed new methods of evaluating the earning and spending power of inner-city communities. Social Compact's non-traditional, "drill-down" market analysis avoids standard market research tools such as phone surveys and interviews and door-to-door contacts. The organizations analyses are predicated on the belief that these methods undercount those people whose phones are unlisted or who rely on cell phones along with those who distrust intrustive questions from strangers and those encumbered by language barriers. "

Measuring Spending Power in Low-Income Communities
Community Developments, Summer 2001

". . . In a new examination of four Chicago community areas, the Washington D.C.-based Social Compact --a nonprofit coalition of corporate leaders pushing private investment in cities -- found significantly more population and more spending power than previous studies. . . The basis of the Social Compact's work is the belief that traditional evaluation tools used to measure the economic health of inner-city neighborhoods were flawed. It contends that many of those tools, such as statistical averaging across Zip codes and across three-mile rings from community centers, may work in homogeneous suburbs but fail in diverse city neighborhoods.

Cashing in, Study Says Neighborhoods are More Populous, Affluent Than Thought
Chicago Tribune, November 5, 2000

Poor Areas Have Clout, Neighborhood Buying Power Comparable to Suburbs
Crain's Chicago Business, September 11, 2000

"The Emerging Neighborhood Markets Initiative is about creating a model that will measure the market strengths of redeveloping neighborhoods and identify strategic business partners; a model that can be applied and adapted locally to communities across the country. And the goal is to strengthen the micro-market building block: the neighborhood."

Social Compact Makes an Impact on Chicago
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Profitwise, Winter 1999

" ... The group known as Social Compact, pulled together Washington's official data on the economic health of Chicago neighborhoods. Then it coaxed growth and revenue numbers out of private-sector companies that actually operated businesses in the same area. Two very different pictures emerged. The federal government's 'social case' proved to be the private sector's 'opportunity.'

" ... Social Compact's findings illustrate a reality economists have been describing for years: the 'poor' aren't always as incapable as Washington portrays them to be.

" ... The message here is that it's high time we all looked beyond the poverty propaganda machine to see what's actually going on everyday in the economic life of the cities."

Up From Poverty
Review & Outlook, The Wall Street Journal, December 28, 1998