Over the past four decades, the forces of economic restructuring, globalization, and suburbanization, coupled with changes in social policies and policy transformation have dimmed hopes for revitalizing minority neighborhoods in the U.S. Community economic development offers a possible way to improve economic and employment opportunities in minority communities. In this authoritative collection of original essays, contributors evaluate current programs and their prospects for future success.
Using case studies that consider communities of African-Americans, Latinos, Asian immigrants, and Native Americans, the book is organized around four broad topics. "The Context" explores the larger demographic, economic, social, and physical forces at work in the marginalizationing of minority communities. "Labor Market Development" discusses the factors that shape supply and demand and examines policies and strategies for workforce development. "Business Development" focuses on opportunities and obstacles for minority-owned businesses. "Complementary Strategies" probes the connections between varied economic development strategies, including the necessity of affordable housing and social services.
Taken together, these essays offer a comprehensive primer for students as well as an informative overview for professionals.
"This collection is both timely and important.... The variety of cities and ethnic/racial communities discussed in these readings suggests that the inherent pragmatics of effective community development demand a sensitivity to place and cultural context that is too often missing in the field."
"Jobs and Economic Development in Minority Communities is an excellent book. It fills a gap in the urban economics literature and it enriches the academic content of the field of community economic development."
"The various authors put development in the context of such issues as sprawl, immigration, and welfare reform. They consider both workforce and business development, and discuss how social networks, social services, and affordable housing might connect."
"The compendium's most valuable contribution is its challenge to prevailing assumptions about the regional character of job markets and best practices in workforce and enterprise development….Practitioners and applied scholars will find useful frameworks for promoting, designing, and implementing holistic, community-based metropolitan economic development plans. The collection's challenges to status quo thinking about 'best practices' translate into reasoned approaches for nongentrifying, nondisplacing, and economically and socially effective economic development."
"(A)n extremely valuable addition to debates focused on stimulating jobs and economic development in minority communities. It importantly -- and quite correctly -- emphasizes the need to sensitize community development activities according to geographical, cultural, and socio-political contexts and the need for interventions to be both cross-cutting and multi-dimensional."
6. Economic Development in Latino Communities: Incorporating Marginal and Immigrant Workers – Abel Valenzuela Jr.
Paul Ong is Director of the Ralph and Goldy Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the co-editor of The New Asian Immigration in Los Angeles and Global Restructuring (Temple).
Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris is Professor and Chair of Urban Planning in the School of Public Affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is co-author of Urban Design Downtown: Poetics and Politics of Form.