Economic and Workforce Development
Municipal governments in the U.S. are increasingly devoting public resources to the redevelopment of abandoned, contaminated or underutilized land. Private sector appetite for new development opportunities and public sector creativity have combined to create "building booms" in a number of central cities that only a few decades ago were in seemingly irreversible decline. In the midst of this government-supported revitalization, however, both working poverty and chronic unemployment in central cities remain disturbingly high. Without explicit efforts to link property redevelopment with efforts to put un-or underemployed people to work at family-supporting wages, the negative impacts of growth (displacement, housing cost appreciation) often affect the historically disadvantaged far more profoundly than its positive impacts do.
Workforce linkage policies present an opportunity to address this situation. Linkage policies explicitly tie economic development made possible through public action to two public goals:
- ensuring that people are prepared for the jobs that development creates; and
- ensuring that the jobs enable people to life themselves from poverty
The report "Building in Good Jobs: Linking Economic and Workforce Development with Real Estate-Led Economic Development, A National Scan" 
is unique in focusing on how linkage policies can specifically harness real estate-led urban revitalization to help people make a lasting exit from poverty. We find that residents of low-income communities are benefiting from linkage initiatives, and that the efforts have not, as some have warned, driven land developers away or discouraged property investment. The report recommends five measures that municipal governments can take to leverage the value of urban redevelopment activity in ways that address unemployment and poverty.
site by Dtek Digital Media