This report discusses the concept, features, and implementation of municipal-level community benefits agreements (CBAs) in California. This report notes that these agreements enhance trust and cooperation between employees, businesses, communities, and governments by contractually binding them to one another following CBA negotiations. Notably, where large scale development projects are bound to a community through a CBA, this report finds that the economic growth and development is more wide spread across the community where developers and communities have a CBA in place than in cases where developers are not bound to the community through some contract. This report finds that CBAs both open lines of communication between community groups and developers and foster greater coordination between communities and developers by establishing goals of development.

This report explores disclosure practices for certain types of subsidies per locality and provides a grade for those programs based on the quality of company-specific disclosures. The report finds that two-thirds of the economic development subsidy programs run by the nation's largest cities and counties do not use the web to report which companies are receiving the tax breaks and other forms of financial assistance. Among the third of programs that do practice online transparency, most do so poorly, failing to disclose the dollar value of the subsidies. An even smaller number reveal key outcomes such as how many jobs were created.

This report is a resource for community organizers who want to improve transit options in their local community. This report includes case studies of successful ridership campaigns and best practices for organizing riders and transit workers.