Four Thoughts on Capital at #LC25Years
This morning, we began Living Cities’ 25th Anniversary celebration with a focus on the role racism has and continues to play in creating gaps for low-income people in America’s cities.
We later transitioned to a series of rapid-fire “Pecha Kucha” presentations on the role of capital in scaling social change and ultimately closing the racial gaps that keep wealth (and the countless opportunities wealth provides) out of reach for communities of color.
Here are four thoughts that these presentations sparked for me:
- Addressing the root causes of inequity requires a shift in value systems. Darren Walker, President of the Ford Foundation, focused his video presentation on the need to infuse the values of fairness, justice, and equity in American capitalism. If we’re serious about closing racial gaps at scale, we can’t rely on policies and approaches that are value- and race-neutral — and that includes our economic system, too. Other voices from the Ford Foundation warned against putting the “invisible hand” of the market on a pedestal and overlooking the imperative of justice and equity.
- We need an ecosystem to make a dent in the problem. Ben Hecht, Living Cities’ President and CEO, walked through his experience of trying to tackle inequality through a variety of means. Living Cities focused mostly on creating and supporting markets for affordable housing in its early years. Grantmaking and investment were core elements of this approach that we continue to this day. But Ben was clear in his presentation that relying on market forces and grants alone hasn’t been enough to make the impact we desperately need to achieve equity. What we need moving forward is a race-conscious ecosystem — a combination of policies, practices, institutions, and technologies — that addresses he complex issues and troubled history that we’re up against.
- Housing plays an out-sized role. Don Chen, also from the Ford Foundation, gave a presentation about how housing and homeownership strategies must be at the center of efforts to address inequity. About half of household wealth of African-Americans was wiped out by the Great Recession. White households lost a tremendous amount too, but they bounced back more easily. We’re now seeing people of color move more and more to the rental housing market, a troubling trend given the importance of homeownership as a means of building wealth in our economic system. Additionally, Chen warned that the Great Recession was a failure of capitalism and the market that we didn’t protect against, and urged us to be cognizant of that as we make policy and design programs.
- To address historical realities of racism, we must focus on expanding access to opportunities. Kesha Cash of Impact America Fund gave us a historical overview of the role that African-Americans have played in the American economy and urged the audience to consider the tremendous contributions and value that our society is essentially “leaving on the table” by limiting the full participation of people of color. There are long-term ramifications of the wealth gap — it would take centuries to close that gap if we stay on our current path.
Do you have reactions to these takeaways? Comment below!
As part of our 25th anniversary celebrations, Living Cities is hosting a Virtual Event for our broader network to engage in critical conversation around Closing Racial Opportunity Gaps. We encourage you to tune-in, share your thoughts, provide feedback, and partake in conversation with participants.
