Mike Green
Jul 20, 2017 · 2 min read

This analysis, data and focus are all well-reasoned and presented with a comprehensive perspective. The solution to segregationist policies and practices, which are used as tools to protect and sustain the status quo of white supremacy, requires a strategic plan of economic inclusion and competitiveness. No investment of any significant proportion, much less a $2B one, is made without a multi-year strategic plan with broad-based measurable outcomes. Baltimore already has several of these plans, including the five-year CEDS, a Workforce Development plan and the Regional Economic Competitiveness Plan produced by MWCOG. As indicated in this well-reasoned post, there is a dearth of black influence in these plans. Even where black faces exist on committees and in leadership, their voices are muted due to lack of knowledge and insight into the mechanics of systemic institutional economic biases and how to disrupt them. Consequently, black leaders in Baltimore co-sign the policy instruments of their own demise.

Additionally, while the terminology of “economic competitiveness” is ubiquitous in the space of economic development, it’s not understood, much less used by black leaders in any space in Baltimore, from community development, to higher education, to housing, transportation, business productivity, business growth, job growth, etc. This means black Baltimore speaks one economic language while white Baltimore speaks another. And this reality leads to another: racial equity is not the language of economics in white America.

Not to say racial equity isn’t a laudable goal and suitable North Star. But with a city lacking in knowledge among black leaders of how the economic competitiveness strategies and ecosystem operate, the idea of a $2B investment in disrupting the status quo will remain a fantasy.

That said, such an investment is not without precedent. The state of Ohio made a $2.1B investment over 20 years to transform its defunct manufacturing economy into a robust knowledge-based, tech-driven globally competitive innovation economy. Governor Kasich boasts about it to this day. But guess who got left on the curb when the innovation economy bus drove by? Black Ohioans. Cleveland, which is home to significant innovation economy drivers and a significant black population, saw whites benefit while blacks remained clueless to what happened that widened the chasm between the haves and have-nots.

Meanwhile, Ohio is the only state in the nation with a higher education policy report on “Inclusive Competitiveness: Empowering Underrepresented Ohioans to Compete in the Innovation Economy.” This report was authored by Johnathan Holifield, who recently released the critically acclaimed book, “The Future Economy and Inclusive Competitiveness.”

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Mike Green

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Co-founder, ScaleUp Partners LLC; Consultant: Inclusive Innovation Ecosystems, Regional Competitiveness and Empowering Underrepresented Populations