Some urban and metropolitan areas throughout the Northeast and Midwest have enjoyed stable population growth and rich economic prosperity throughout recent history. However, many of the region's historic cities - former centers of industry, transportation, and American ingenuity - have suffered, and continue to suffer, the pains of population loss, lack of traditional employment opportunities, and diminished economic investment.

Ship-mediated invasive species is one of the most pressing and consequential environmental problems facing the region. The Institute used its unique position within the region to forge collaboration among groups possessing critical parts of the solution to catalyze progress, and generate the regional capacity necessary to effectively implement it. The Great Ships Initiative (GSI) fuses interests, expertise, and resources from the federal government, states, industry, environmental groups, cities, and ports in the United States and Canada, to generate critical information and financial incentives for solving the problem of ship-mediated invasive species.

One consequence of being the nation’s historic industrial heartland is that the Northeast-Midwest region suffers disproportionately from vacant contaminated properties, or brownfields.  The Institute has been at the forefront of brownfields policy development and information dissemination since the early 1990s, when the Institute organized the first brownfields conference in Chicago in 1991 and published the landmark New Life For Old Buildings.