Bruce J. Katz

Bruce Katz (born June 21, 1959) Katz was born in Brooklyn, New York, and graduated with a B.A. from Brown University in 1981. He earned his J.D. from Yale Law School in 1985. Currently he is a vice president at the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, D.C. He is founding director of the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program, which aims to provide decision makers in the public, corporate, and civic sectors with policy ideas for improving the health and prosperity of cities and metropolitan areas.

Katz advises federal, state, and local leaders on shifting demographic and market trends as well as on policies that are critical to metropolitan prosperity (e.g., innovation, human capital, infrastructure, housing) and new forms of metropolitan governance. After Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, Katz co-led the housing and urban transition team and served as a senior advisor to Shaun Donovan, the new Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, for the first 100 days of the Obama administration.

Katz is a visiting professor at the London School of Economics. In 2006 Katz won the 12th Annual Heinz Award for Public Policy. He was recognized for his work “re-imagining the function and value of cities and metropolitan areas and profoundly influencing their economic vitality, livability and sustainability”. In 2011, Katz was named a Senior Fellow of the Design Futures Council.

Katz served as Chief of Staff to Henry Cisneros, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, from 1993 to 1996. He previously served as Senior Counsel and then Staff director of the United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.