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A World of Opportunity

Posted By: Pastilan
A World of Opportunity

A World of Opportunity
Center For Urban Future | 2007 | ISBN 2007022408 | English | 60 pages | PDF | 745 KB

Immigrant entrepreneurs have emerged as key engines of growth for cities from New York to Los Angeles—and with a little planning and support, they could provide an even bigger economic boost in the future. AS THE STAKES OF ECONOMIC COMPETITION GROW EVER-HIGHER in America’s cities, mayors have sought to kick-start local economies by embracing everything from artists and biotechnology companies to sports arenas. For many of the nation’s urban centers, however, a more rewarding— if decidedly less glamorous—answer is hiding in plain sight: tappingtheir growing immigrant populations.

During the past decade, immigrants have been the entrepreneurial sparkplugs of cities from New York to Los Angeles—starting a greater share of new businesses than native-born residents, stimulating growth in sectors from food manufacturing to health care, creating loads of new jobs, and transforming once-sleepy neighborhoods into thriving commercial centers. And immigrant entrepreneurs are also becoming one of the most dependable parts of cities’ economies: while elite sectors like fi nance (New York), entertainment (Los Angeles) and energy (Houston) fl uctuate wildly through cycles of boom and bust, immigrants have been starting businesses and creating jobs during both good times and bad.

Two trends suggest that these entrepreneurs will become even more critical to the economies of cities in the years ahead: immigrant-led population growth and the ongoing trend of large companies in many industries moving to decentralize their operations out of cities and outsource work to cheaper locales. But despite this great and growing importance, immigrant entrepreneurs remain a shockingly overlooked and little-understood part of cities’ economies, and they are largely disconnected from local economic development planning.