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Reconstructing Urban Poverty Policy: Alternative Credit, Poverty Alleviation, and Economic Development in U.S. Inner Cities Author: Lisa Servon Dissertation School: University of California, Berkeley Pages: 425 Publication Date: January 1995 Availability: Access Number: 10705 Abstract: The existence of urban poverty in U.S. cities poses a great challenge to the theory and practice of urban economic development. Over the last 30-odd years, urban poverty policy has continually failed to hit its mark, which leads one to believe that the theory upon which it is based is flawed. This dissertation examines one new strategy designed to help alleviate poverty and promote other economic development goals—microenterprise programs. This dissertation presents the results of fieldwork conducted at microenterprise programs in three cities—New York, Boston, and San Francisco—and places the microenterprise strategy into the context of economic development and urban poverty policy. The dissertation explores the historical incongruity that exists between the economic development and social welfare fields as they are traditionally configured, beginning with through to the present new breed of strategies to which microenterprise programs belong. The new breed of strategies to which microenterprise programs belong marry critical aspects of both social welfare and economic development approaches. While each program falls under the label “microenterprise programs,” the research findings demonstrate the breadth of that label. While all three programs provide small amounts of credit to microentrepreneurs, the manner in which the credit is distributed and the role credit plays within the larger mission of each program differs greatly from one programs to another. Each of the programs studied uses credit as a springboard to achieve something that goes beyond simple access to business funding. WISE uses credit to achieve individual empowerment; Working Capital aims to achieve community empowerment through the provision of credit; and Accion New York is the closest thing in the microcredit world to a pure alternative financial institution—empowerment is not part of the vocabulary. The fact that all three go by the same label—microcredit—obscures their differences and de-emphasizes their orientations around other goals. Similarly, the range of people who use these programs is extremely broad, providing support for the idea that “the urban poor” is not a unified category. At its base, the problem of persistent urban poverty is rooted in the uneven distribution of political, economic, and socio-cultural resources. It is important to recognize that this unevenness is patterned, not random. A meaningful analysis of why urban economic development strategies have failed to benefit this group must therefore begin by asking questions about power, dominance, and distribution. Current strategizing about policy reform should therefore begin by understanding entrenched power imbalances as structural constraints to solving the problems, and move on to brainstorm about conjunctural opportunities that can be exploited in the short run. I argue that the new wave of strategies to which microcredit programs belong has begun to exploit these opportunities, and that important lessons can be learned from these experiences that can be used as the foundation for a reconstruction of urban poverty policy. This reconstruction must take a long term view of developing individuals by increasing their assets through the flexible provision of resources such as credit and training. |
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