Competitive+Advantage+of+the+Inner-City

From //Harvard Business Review// 1995
 * "The Competitive Advantage of the Inner City"**

Porter is the Bishop William Lawrence University Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He is also the Director of Harvard's Institute for Strategy and Cometitiveness. He is the author of over 125 articles and 17 books. (City Reader, p. 275) He is the founder of a nonprofit organization called the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City.
 * Porter, Michael (1947- )**

Porter describes inner city economics as teh main issue. He feels that the government trainign programs to help create more jobs in teh inner city are ineffective and inefficient. The government seems to give money to small businesses that cannot make it in teh inner city without their help; it is within the big businesses (warehouses) that will relieve the economic stress. He favors private initiatives based on economic interest.
 * Main Argument**

There are four true advantages to inner-city locations:
 * Other Ideas in the Article**
 * 1) strategic locaion
 * 2) local market demande the area possesses
 * 3) possibilities of integration with regional job clusters
 * 4) industrious labor force that is eager to work

There are nine disadvantages of the inner city:
 * 1) Land (most land is unstable and expensive, and therefore unusable)
 * 2) Building Costs (higher in the city due to restrictions of zoning, codes, permits, etc.)
 * 3) Other costs (utilities, workman's comp, taxes, water)
 * 4) Security (police, fear of crime)
 * 5) Infrastructure (links between inner city businesses and the surrounding economy)
 * 6) Employee skills (lack of skills to work anywhere except in unskilled jobs)
 * 7) Management skills (no management skills when businesses are started)
 * 8) Capital (lack of savings, small business lending is not very profitable to banks)
 * 9) Attitudes (people's attitudes against inner city businesses)

Private Initiatve goals: City Reader, 282-283
 * 1) "create and expand business activity in the inner city"
 * 2) "Establish business relationships within the inner city"
 * 3) "redirect corporate philanthropy from social services"
 * 4) "adopt the right model for equity capital investments"

Things to improve:
 * 1) Private capital -- convince people to build businesses in the city (partnerships)
 * 2) Government -- relax regulations on businesses and use their power to make land available and usable, give incentives (tax breaks)
 * 3) community

Not a bad read. A lot of information.
 * Comments**

--Alexis Capoccia