Federal Urban Job Creation: A Systemic Analysis

Many urban neighborhoods in this country are afflicted by unemployment, homelessness, poverty, and drug-related crime. Most Americans have learned to deal with these problems by simply avoiding the inner city. Unfortunately, the people living in these areas must face the problems of economic and social decline every day. For millions of urban dwellers, the financial resources needed to move out of the inner city have not materialized. Others have family and cultural ties to their communities which compel them to stay. The question to ask, then, is what can be done to improve distressed central city areas and provide some hope for the victims of urban blight. The purpose of this article is to analyze selected federal urban policies designed to provide economic revitalization to inner cities. First, the need for urban job creation will be discussed. Second, a rationale will be provided for dle involvement of the federal government in urban job cre ation. Third, an analytiC framework will be presented which is designed to address dle needs of urban commu nities. Next, this framework will be applied to current and proposed federal policies to see if the federal government is making a positive contribution in the area of urban job creation policy. Finally, the audlor will proVide a policy recommendation. The need for urban job creation is evidenced by the high levels of unemployment in central Cities, a tenn used by the U.S. Bureau of the Census to mean the largest urban area within a metropolitan statistical area (MSA).l For sev enteen central cities regularly tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the 1993 unemployment rate (the most recent available for these areas) was 9.8 percent, compared to the 6.8 percent national unemployment rate for the ,same year.2 Central cities such as St. Louis and Detroit experienced excessive levels of unemployment during 1993, 15.8 percent and 13.7 percent, respectively.'