Newtown Stationary: Getting Communities Back Into the Economic Development Game
Research Paper
Summary:Today’s inner cities can be places in which entrepreneurs, availing themselves of vertical and horizontal networks of business and community interests, can prosper. Government interventions such as the empowerment zone initiatives have generally not been successful in developing the indigenous entrepreneurial base in the inner city. Using the case of a single entrepreneur, this study explores alternative networking, inner city economics and the problem of failed statist policies as regards inner city economic development. It continues existing work aimed at deconstructing narratives that hold that inner cities lack effective reciprocal networks that would aid in economic development and details the experience of a single entrepreneur in attempting to change the power relations within her community. It aims at a more complete integration of community concerns in the development and execution of community development interventions.