What Would It Take for You to Start or Expand a Business in a Low-Income Neighborhood? A Symposium

Why this new American Experiment symposium? For a variety of reasons, starting with the assumption that unless commerce in a neighborhood—or at least in its vicinity—is vibrant, chances are little else will be either, including income levels, public safety, and graduation rates, to pick just three gauges. If one were to focus more specifically on families, it’s impossible to imagine how marriage can be re-institutionalized in many places unless many more men are economically successful enough, causing many more women (in sociologist William Julius Wilson’s famous locution) to view them as “marriageable.” Completing the circle, imagining good data and good news is tantamount to impossible if large numbers of men (and women and children) continue living in communities largely bereft of going and growing businesses.