Although attention to labor market preparation, access, and retention for disadvantaged workers has experienced a dramatic turnaround in the past 6 years for economic and policy reasons, serious challenges remain. Today’s workforce development implies more than employment training in the narrow sense: It means substantial employer engagement, deep community connections, career advancement, integrative human service supports, contextual and industry-driven education and training, reformed community colleges, and connective tissue of networks. This article discusses six areas of workforce development learning: (a) retention and advancement, (b) employer and jobseeker customers, (c) regions and neighborhoods, (d) race and labor markets, (e) best practices and replication, and (f) labor market reform. In addition to inevitable economic downturns, optimism should be tempered by three big challenges: the underlying patterns of wage and income inequality, the persistence of race and gender inequalities, and our historic failure to create effective links between schools and labor markets.
Growth machine theorists argue that metropolitan development patterns represent the concerted activities of powerful growth coalitions who manipulate public agendas and guide local development, devoid of public accountability. This article investigates the organization and activities of the Chicago growth coalition which promoted a large development project—the 1992 World's Fair. Using interlocking directorates, it examines the corporate and institutional networks among coalition members and shows the constellation of interests that established this development agenda. As indicated by the extent of connections, this coalition is shown to be a corporate, civic, and social community. Although holding the potential for power as represented by the highly linked interests believed to hold sway in development issues, this coalition is unsuccessful in bringing this project to fruition. Changing political structures and dynamics diminished the power of the resources held by Chicago's growth coalition to bring in this project and altered the business‐as‐usual framework for growth coalition governance. A more open development politics combined with incompetent elite leadership and faulty project design contributed to this failure. This case study suggests that interlocking directorates and static studies of power are insufficient for understanding development outcomes and pro‐growth strategy, success and failure. Studies of the resources held by those at the top must account for the politics that maintain local quiescence, support participation, or instigate local opposition This article also shows the large role that changing local political structures and government can play in mitigating power inequities over development and growth issues in urban areas.
Philanthropic investments in economic development—including grants, technical assistance, program-related investments, policy advocacy, and civic leadership—have increased during the past decades. Philanthropic support for economic development provides flexible, timely resources for innovation, capacity building, and policy advocacy. While philanthropy is often associated with social equity approaches, philanthropic investments in economic development are quite diverse—downtown development, place-based renewal, social enterprises, and economic development networks. This study reviews existing data about philanthropy and economic development, vignettes of foundation investments, and nonprofit perspectives about new foundation roles. Overall, place-rooted foundations are most engaged in economic development, while many national foundations are formulating broader strategic frameworks related to economic inclusion. Foundations are helping achieve concrete economic development results; future research requires improvements in data and in-depth case studies of places with significant philanthropic engagement.
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