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Working Toward Equity in Development Outside Urban Core

October 02, 2014

After decades of seeing their suburbs thrive while their cores decayed, cities across the United States  are receiving a long overdue influx of talent and capital in what Alan Ehrenhalt describes as the “great inversion.” While a large proportion of wealth and population in many regions still lives in the suburbs, trends are shifting, and it’s not just anecdotal. Although the transformation of blighted buildings, the development of new rentals, and the appearance of boutiques and cafes littering sidewalks garners the most attention, there is a quantitative component as well.

According to the Brookings Institution, core cities of the nation’s 51 largest metropolitan areas grew faster than their suburbs between July 2010-2011. And, among Millennials, those aged 18-36 years who make up a quarter of the country’s population, 62 percent indicate they prefer to live in mixed-use communities found in urban centers where they can be closer to the amenities the city has to offer, according to a Nielsen survey. Many cities, especially in their cores, are beginning to transform in ways besides their built environment, creating substantial, yet not-necessarily positive, impacts on areas elsewhere in the region.

As a way of shedding additional light on this, Richard Florida and his colleagues at the Martin Prosperity Institute released The Divided City and the Shape of the New Metropolis earlier this week.  This map-filled report uses block-level census data to describe the geographical distribution of class in 12 of the United States’ largest metropolitan areas. The authors operationalize class into three parts, the creative class, the service class, and the working class, and then map these populations at both the city and metropolitan level. Ultimately, their conclusions are relatively clear cut: in nearly every case, the creative class is concentrated in and around a desirable urban core, the service class generally resides in the periphery, and few clusters of working class individuals remain. In many instances, redevelopment, spurred by both the private and public sectors, has fostered new clusters of creative workers in areas where there had been few. Examples of this include the post-industrial riverfronts in Brooklyn or Manhattan, gentrified Philadelphia neighborhoods like Rittenhouse Square or Society Hill, and the Midtown section of Detroit. In a response to the report, Next City author Alexis Stephens notes, however, that “one man’s ‘reclamation’ might be (or, is often) another man’s displacement by policy change.”

While cities are becoming increasingly popular among people and businesses alike, and as the redevelopment efforts of their cores continues to gain momentum, the elephant in the room remains: if progress is isolated in just a few census tracts, what can be done in the areas where stagnation or decline continue to exacerbate regional inequality. As Allan Mallach from the Center for Community Progress in Washington, D.C., finds, the dynamics of revitalization have tended to concentrate population and job growth in small parts of the city to the exclusion of the rest, leading to a growth in inequality and polarizing the city by race and income. Although conventional economic development organizations should be concerned with the vitality of their region as a whole, they typically tend to take the “wins” where they can get them; development is deemed as good, as are the jobs, people, or cafes that come with it.  Unsurprisingly then, much of the work being done to address the needs of the communities being left out of economic growth comes from the bottom-up at the grassroots level, rather than from the top-down.

In some cities, this work has already begun.  After losing more than 100,000 jobs in the 1980s, the Pittsburgh region’s diversified economy now serves as a model for the nation on how to redevelop through innovation. Through the realization that not all communities and populations are connected to the transformative new economy, 20 regional anchors partnered to establish the consortium Urban Innovation21. This group conducts a variety of programs around the region related to “inclusive innovation,” practical solutions, new business models, and innovative processes that create a more inclusive regional economy that benefits all. One of Urban Innovation21’s core programs, the Pittsburgh Central Keystone Innovation Zone (PCKIZ), utilizes a combination of tax incentives, networking events, educational and internship programs, and resources to entrepreneurs to multiply technology-based economic development activities in an underserved area.  The program has already been replicated in Homewood, one of Pittsburgh’s other underserved neighborhoods.

Detroit is another prime example of a city that is seemingly growing after years of decline, yet doing so in an unequitable manner, prompting some to ask if there is room for low-income residents to benefit from the city’s reinvention. TechTown, Detroit’s most established business accelerator and incubator, has been delivering a broad network of resources and programs to the city’s emerging entrepreneurs for more than 10 years. In August 2012, the organization launched its SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) City program to provide neighborhood businesses in many of the city’s underserved areas the same economic injections and attention received by those in Midtown or downtown. Currently, TechTown works in Detroit’s Brightmoor, East Jefferson, Grandmont, Rosedale, Hope Village, Osborn and University District neighborhoods, and has delivered nearly 5,000 hours of service over the programs first two years.  By providing essential business services to the large portions of the city where they had been unavailable, the SWOT City program plays an active role in developing the local economy from the ground up.

Other examples of cities and their partners working to improve access to equitable growth in underserved communities include Partners for a Competitive Workforce in Cincinnati, Inner City Advisors in Oakland, or the 5,000 Jobs Campaign from the Brownsville Partnership in Brooklyn. Technology-based economic development organizations such as BioSTL in St. Louis or Jumpstart in Cleveland operate their own inclusion programs. At the community level, work is being done throughout the country to engage communities that are otherwise being left behind. The challenge then lies in motivating the forces working toward economic growth in these developing urban cores to care more about what is (or is not) happening outside of them.

People moving to cities, especially in places and populations where this would not have been the case even 10 years ago, should be considered a good thing. Countless books have been written on the benefits to living in cities, and if recent trends are any indication, more and more people will continue moving to cities to reap these benefits (and write about them). What can be lost in this development, however, is that neighborhoods still exist outside of the core, and that these neighborhoods are likewise impacted by change. As a result of the systems nature of economic development, gains and losses in certain areas can have profound impacts in others. In order for this new development to be sustainable, it is of the utmost importance that equity and fairness, throughout the system, is incorporated in the work being done in its dynamic core and beyond.

inclusion, metros