Breaking Bread over Race, Religion and Politics

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Breaking Bread over Race, Religion and Politics

• PRISCM Regional Issue Summit
• March 3, 2007
• Bowie State University

john a. powell Williams Chair in Civil Rights
Civil Liberties, Moritz College of Law
Director, Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race
and Ethnicity
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Overview of presentation

• We are at a crossroads metro, state, nation. We
  need to
• Recognize how we been divided by race, class, and
  place
• Understand and articulate our linked fates
• Develop a transformative vision for the future
• Link this vision to policy goals

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Crossroads

• The region can adopt a bold new vision that
  requires regional cooperation and fairness or
• Continue to struggle with
• Uneven growth
• Troubling economic trends
• Opportunity segregation
• Racial polarization

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Growing, but not as fast as your peers

• In the DC Region, Marylands Counties are not
  keeping pace with the rapid job growth in
  Virginias Counties
• Northern VA 27 Job Growth (1990-99)
• Suburban MD 14 Job Growth (1990-99)
• Suburban Washington DC Counties in Maryland are
  also growing slower than their peers in Suburban
  Baltimore
• Suburban MD--Baltimore 17 Job Growth (1990-99)
• Suburban MD--DC 14 Job Growth (1990-99)

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Growing, but not as fast as your peers
Source Greater Washington Research Center
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Opportunity, Race, Housing and Jobs in the Region

• Opportunity mapping creating an index of
  indicators of neighborhood health, economic
  health, educational resources and social
  conditions
• Gives us a more nuanced view of how opportunity
  is distributed in the region

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Opportunity, Race, Housing and Jobs in the Region

• Assessing conditions and trends in affordable
  housing, racial segregation and economic
  conditions raises concerns for Prince Georges,
  Calvert and Charles Counties
• Opportunity is segregated away from these
  counties, in comparison to other suburban DC
  counties
• African Americans are segregated in these
  counties in lower opportunity areas (and
  suburbanizing African Americans are moving to
  lower opportunity areas)
• Affordable housing is more concentrated in these
  suburban counties than in suburban Virginia
• Lower concentrations of jobs and slower economic
  growth are found in these areas

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Divergent health outcomes

• Community health ratings vary by race
• Rates in metro DC for whites were better than the
  national average for 17 of 19 community health
  indicators (i.e. tobacco use, obesity,
  environmental quality), but were better for
  blacks for only 5 of the 19
• Source Metropolitan Washington Public Health
  Assessment Center, Community Health Indicators
  for the Washington Metropolitan Region
• Lack of dental care for children on Medicaid
• Fewer than one in three children in Maryland's
  Medicaid program received any dental service at
  all in 2005
• In the District, 29.3 percent got treatment, and
  in Virginia, 24.3 percent were treated
• Source For Want of a Dentist, Prince Georges
  Boy Dies After Bacteria from Tooth Spread to
  Brain 2/28/07 WashingtonPost.com

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Market segregation

• Favored quarter
• Captures largest share of public investment
• Enjoys strongest tax base and job growth
• Uses local powers to exclude the non-affluent
• Disfavored quarter
• Concentration of racial minorities leads to
  decline in access to and influence of
  institutional actors who shape markets
• This undervalues and limits African-American
  buying power and the economic health of
  communities
• See Sheryll Cashin, The Failures of Integration

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Business redlining

• Empirical studies show that commercial
  disinvestment in majority-black communities, even
  affluent ones, is commonplace
• See Sheryll Cashin, The Failures of Integration
• Original research in Philadelphia found that
  black tracts received fewer small business loans
  after controlling for other factors (i.e. firm
  size, neighborhood income)
• Federal bank regulators should include race in
  their small business lending data (they currently
  do not in fact, voluntary collection of such
  data by banks is prohibited)
• More research is needed to confirm business loan
  discrimination in other regions
• See Dan Immergluck (2002) Redlining Redux
  Black Neighborhoods, Black-Owned Firms, and the
  Regulatory Cold Shoulder. Urban Affairs Review
  38 (1) 22-41.

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Divergent industry / sector development

• Government outsourcing has enriched Northern
  Virginia (Loudoun, Fairfax Co.)
• Loudon Co. is nations most affluent (highest
  median income of 98,483)
• Fairfax Co. unemployment rate at 1.9
• Northern Virginia is strongest regional economy
  of last 5 years in the U.S.
• Source Time Magazine 2/8/07, The Federal Job
  Machine
• How to get into this pipeline?

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Comparing federal investment spending in five
counties

• In a preliminary analyses, Kirwan researchers
  separated out key measures of safety net
  spending (geared to short term, individual
  sustenance) such as Medicaid, income security,
  housing assistance
• versus key measures of investment spending
  (geared to long term, sustainable economic
  development) such as Defense Department
  procurement and health research grants
• Calculations from data retrieved from
  www.dataplace.org

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Comparing federal investment spending in five
counties

• Then calculated a rough ratio of investment
  spending to safety net spending for five counties
• Prince George, Calvert and Charles Counties are
  not receiving anywhere near the federal
  investment spending that Fairfax and Loudon
  Counties are.
• Ratio (Investment Spending Safety Net Spending)
• Prince Georges Co 10 1
• Calvert Co 1 1
• Charles Co 2 1
• Loudoun Co 55 1
• Fairfax Co 74 1

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Loudoun, Charles, and Calvert Counties are much
smaller in population, but similar in size.
Fairfax and Prince Georges County are
similar-size counties.
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The cost of disparities

• Inequality is a sign of an economically and
  socially undercapitalized society
• Not everyone can meet his or her potential
• Disparities deplete the regions economic and
  social well-being
• Educated labor is a primary indicator of an
  economically healthy region in a global
  skill-based economy
• Disparities depress the earnings and quality of
  life for everyone, including the better off

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The cost of a divided region

• Comparison among those doing well and those doing
  less well sets the bar too low, rather than
  asking how to lift it for all
• Fragmented regions with disparities are not
  sustainable
• People in the region compete rather than
  cooperate
• Disparities become the way things are without
  recognizing the role governmental policy has
  played in the past, and can play in shaping our
  future

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Linked fates

• Realize that our fates are linked, yet our fates
  have been socially constructed as disconnected
• Through the categories of class, race, gender,
  nationality, region
• We need socially constructed bridges to
  transform our society

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transformative change

• Conceive of an individuality as connected
  toinstead of isolated fromthy neighbor
• Be advocates for transformative change
• Transformative An intervention that works to
  permanently transform structural arrangements
  which produce inequity and disparity

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Transformative changefrom reflection to policy

• Equitable regionalism Putting our linked fates
  in the center of our policy concerns
• Every community in the region should have a voice
  in the future of its people
• Goal is to improve the health of the whole and
  expand opportunities for all

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Cooperate in strategic interventions

• Need to understand the linkages between ourselves
  and our communities, but also among policy areas
• Examples cycle of school segregation and
  housing public/private investment and
  neighborhood conditions

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Cycle of School Segregation
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Policy examples

• Examples of policies that prioritize the need for
  everyone to have access to opportunity
• Housing
• Education
• Economic Development

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Housing

• Housing is Critical in Determining Access to
  Opportunity

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Housing

• People
• Subsidies for affordable housing in
  high-opportunity neighborhoods with good schools
• Places
• Regional housing and neighborhood development
  plans
• Opportunity-based Zoning (Rusk presentation)
• Links
• Improved public transportation to jobs

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Education
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Education

• People
• Vouchers for students to access high-performing,
  low-poverty schools
• Places
• Magnet and charter schools
• Targeted support (service learning, de-tracking,
  early childhood education, high-quality teachers
  to high-need schools)
• Links
• Collaborative education with community
  stakeholders
• Link P-12 to University and employment

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Economic development

• People
• Networking, mentoring between minority and
  majority firms
• Firms in growing sectors participate in inclusion
  and regional economic discussions
• Places
• Better distribute federal investment spending
• BRAC opportunities
• Smart growth policies
• Links
• Coalitions around regional economic development
  plans

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Economic development
Industry-focused workforce development
MBE/SBD development
Equitable Economic Development Practice Areas
Leveraging and distributing resources
investments
Neighborhood development
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Equitable regionalism framework

• Regional development must be fair advocate for
  equitable investments in all people, in all
  communities
• Combat segregation, isolation, disconnection from
  opportunity
• Multi-county collaboration is one strategy to
  redirect regional growth patterns
• What is the opportunity cost of doing nothing?
  Continued sprawl, disinvestment, economic and
  educational disparities

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Equity calls for cooperation

• Why do we need cooperation between the regions
  communities to address concentrations of poverty
  and disparity?
• Linked fates the regions disparities harm
  everyone, not only those directly impacted
• Through collective imagination, we need to define
  what the future should look like
• What is our alternative vision?
• A model where we all grow together
• Policy emphasizes collective solutions
• This vision requires collective action and will
  require diverse coalitions to be successful

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Vision for future

• How to meet convergence of defense and
  high-tech industries
• Skills needed technology, consulting, computer
  services, scientific research
• BRAC challenges and opportunities
• Economic engine of region is national security
• DC Metro added more jobs than Sun Belt boomtowns
  from 2000-2005

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BRAC Base Realignment and Closure

• Will close down 25 major installations and
  radically realign 24 others, with a very healthy
  focus on growth
• Realign from Cold War stance to 21st Century
  threats
• Global reshuffling
• Have to respond quickly to change share
  underutilized facilities
• FY 2006 Budget Estimates
• Military Construction approx 1.2 billion (lions
  share of total budget of 1.4 billion)
• See Appendix slide for BRAC sources

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Federal PolicyWhat to do?

• BRAC illustrates the power of federal policy to
  radically rearrange economic activity and
  investment
• Private dollars often follow public dollars
• What can we learn from this experience?
• Need to preempt future policy decisions that have
  economic ramifications like BRAC
• Lobbying for fair investment from major federal
  policy initiatives like BRAC in the future
  (lobbying easier if done collaboratively)

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Business RedliningWhat to do?

• How can we counteract private sector business
  redlining (4 strategies)
• Direct policy to address the factors that bias
  investment models (Business GIS Investment
  Models)
• Work to counteract racial segregation, avoid
  concentrated subsidized housing development,
  educate realtors to avoid steering (racial
  segregation opportunity segregation)
• Attract and anchor private investment with
  strategically placed public investment (local,
  state, federal)
• Produce a collective voice to sell the region
  (Prince George, Charles and Calvert) to national
  firms and venture capitalists
• What are your assets that can be used to entice
  investment?
• This goal is easier if done collaboratively
• Encourage home-grown business development
• Assure equitable investment in small business
  lending, support MBEs and local entrepreneurial
  activity, develop accelerators and incubators for
  new businesses (work on growing firms)

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Vision for future

• Preparing everyone for public and private sector
  employment in growth sectors
• Education and training
• Housing policy is school policy
• Lobbying for future fair regional distribution of
  federal defense outsourcing and investment
• Federal investment often results in private
  spin-offs
• Investments are for long-term growth

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Thank you!Visit us _at_ www.kirwaninstitute.org
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Appendix A BRAC sources

• Information from www.dod.mil/brac
• Troop Moves, BRAC Part of DoDs Transformation
  Agenda, Officials Say. Gerry J. Gilmore,
  American Forces Press Service. 6/21/2006
• The Report of the Department of Defense on Fiscal
  Year 2006 Planned Expenditures from the
  Department of Defense Base Closure Account 2005.
  BRAC Conference Focuses on Both Downsizing,
  Growth. John D. Banusiewicz, American Forces
  Press Service, 5/3/2006
• BRAC FAQ
• The Federal Job Machine. Justin Fox. Time
  Magazine 2/08/07