Case Study: New Orleans, Louisiana

How can cities build inclusive local innovation ecosystems?

THE CASE STUDIES

Over the course of six months, Forward Cities and ScaleUp Partners visited four cities to learn about their efforts to build inclusive local economies. These cities, New Orleans, Durham, Detroit, and Cleveland all agreed to form some version of a Local Innovation Council through which organized efforts to stimulate and cultivate inclusive entrepreneurship would offer access to resources, improve business ownership and connect diverse communities as viable pipelines of economic productivity to their local innovation ecosystem. A case study for each city describes the approaches taken and presents insights into the challenges faced and positive outcomes achieved.

PROBLEM

All four of the aforementioned cities face similar economic problem. Communities of color (primarily black and Hispanic residents) are uniformly disconnected from the economic drivers of the city’s entrepreneurial innovation ecosystem and available business resources therein. The disconnect results in low participation of black and Hispanic entrepreneurial talent in regional growth sector industries as well as stagnation of business ownership and growth within communities of color.

The untapped talent in communities of color remains a lesser-known potential source of new business growth, tax revenue and jobs to bolster the growth of local economies. Cities…