Corporate Study Finds Community-Building Partnerships
Key to Economic Growth

Community-based organizations are playing a growing role in addressing problems of urban inner-city residents and neighborhoods. A recent report from the Committee for Economic Development (CED) focuses on this role and emphasizes ways that government can be supportive.

The report, Rebuilding Inner-City Communities: A New Approach to the Nation's Urban Crisis, sees community-building efforts as prerequisite to the success of any strategies to revitalize inner cities. According to the report, the health of neighborhoods and communities is vital to the health of cities. CEU's focus provides a framework for a broader strategy and recognizes that "no effort to revitalize distressed inner cities will proceed very far or very fast without the support of the federal, state, and local governments."

One of the problems that community-based organizations have had in the past is their lack of relationship with city government. No sector, alone, can solve deeply entrenched problems like concentrated urban poverty. Only through effective coalitions of government, business and community leaders can real reform take place.

The report recognizes the importance of sectors working together toward lasting solutions. CED recommends that government at all three levels do the following:

• Encourage and participate in partnerships that link inner-city residents and their community-based organizations to support from the philanthropic, government and business communities.
• Expand the use of community-based organizations to implement programs and deliver services to inner-city communities.
• Operate programs implemented directly by public agencies in community-building style.
• Invest in strengthening the capacity of community-based organizations.
• Control the handguns and assault weapons that disrupt community life.
• Reduce the impact of illegal drugs on community life.
• Review and modify policies that concentrate social and economic problems in distressed communities.
• Work to eliminate racial, ethnic, and other forms of discrimination in employment, credit, and housing.

The key challenge for policymakers and public officials, according to the report, is to educate business leaders who, for the most part, fail to see a direct link between their company's health and the health of central cities. The report claims that all firms, regardless of size, have contributions to make to help revitalize inner cities. The report includes recommendations to the business community on ways that business can support a national inner-city, community-building agenda.

(Source: Rebuilding Inner-City Communities: A New Approach to the Nation's Urban Crisis, A Statement by the Research and Policy Committee of the Committee for Economic Development, 1995. To order, write CEU, 447 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10022, or call 212-688-2063; $18 plus shipping and handling.)

September 1995 / Illinois Municipal Review / Page 25