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WASHINGTON — Memphis is one of 17 majority-minority areas among the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas and is categorized as an “industrial core” metro area, the “most demographically disadvantaged” type, according to a Brookings Institution report to be released this morning.

The report, “The State of Metropolitan America,” says the 2000s were a “lost decade” in the sense that the country “lost time and opportunity to respond to the challenges and prospects of its new demographic realities.”

Those realities include a spreading out of metro populations, diversification of the population, an aging population, uneven higher educational attainment and income polarization, the report says.

“Questions around how to support communities with rapidly aging populations, how to meet family and labor market needs through immigration, and how to help lower-paid workers support themselves and their families simply cannot go unaddressed for another decade without risking our collective standard of living and the quality of our democracy,” the report says.

The Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, has been focused on challenges facing metropolitan areas for several years. Memphis Mayor A C Wharton has been asked to participate in its ongoing work.

The report recommends accommodating more efficient growth by putting a price on carbon, encouraging greater coordination between housing and transportation planning and reducing the deductibility of mortgage interest.

Noting that the country is expected to be majority nonwhite by the 2040s, it also calls for comprehensive immigration reform and the creation of a national Office of New Americans “to coordinate makeshift local integration efforts.”

It calls for enhanced oversight of mortgage products to protect home equity for an aging population and accelerating higher educational attainment by enhancing teacher quality.

The report splits the country’s 100 largest metropolitan areas into seven categories:

Next Frontiers, which have high growth rates, diversity and high educational attainment, nine of the 10 of which are west of the Mississippi (Washington, D.C., is the 10th)

New Heartlands, also fast-growing but less diverse. Examples are Atlanta, Charlotte and Richmond, Va.

Diverse Giants, diverse with above-average educational attainment but slower growth because of their sizes. Examples would be New York, Los Angeles and Chicago

Border Growth Metros, with significant Hispanic populations

Mid-Sized Magnets, which include 15 areas, mostly in the Southeast but without the high-value industries that characterize the “New Heartland”

Skilled Anchors, which include St. Louis, Boston and Pittsburgh, with high educational attainment and significant medical and higher education facilities, and

Industrial Cores, including Memphis, that are slower growing and less diverse and less educated than the national average, often seeing growth in their outer suburbs. The others in this category are Harrisburg, Pa.; Louisville, Ky.; New Orleans, La.; Providence, R.I.; Scranton, Pa.; Toledo, Ohio; Tulsa, Okla.; Virginia Beach-Newport News, Va.; Wichita, Kansas; Youngstown, Ohio; Augusta, Ga.; Birmingham, Ala.; Buffalo, N.Y.; Dayton, Ohio; Detroit, Mich.; and Grand Rapids, Mich.

The report makes the point that cities are no longer characterized by their geography in the Northeast, Middle West, South, Mountain West or West Coast, but by the rapidly changing demographic challenges each faces.

“Viewing metropolitan America through this lens offers a more nuanced view of the country and its variable challenges than conventional regional generalization,” the report says.

– Bartholomew Sullivan: (202) 408-2726.

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