Connecting to Markets Series

Neighborhoods throughout metropolitan areas function very differently from one another: some are primarily residential neighborhoods that, in effect, export labor; others contain industrial, commercial and retail districts where goods and services are produced and consumed. Lower-income neighborhoods often fail on both counts, neither exporting labor nor acting as production centers that draw employees and consumers from other parts of the metropolitan area.

Over the past decade, researchers have called attention to a variety of ways in which lower-income neighborhoods participate in the regional economy, including discovery by retailers of the untapped market potential of lower-income neighborhoods, emergence of clusters of arts and cultural activity, and the role of anchor institutions as employers and service providers.

• Part 1
• Part 2