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Inner Cities Losing Jobs

Posted by: Brenda Meyer

30 November 2005 - 8:00am

Despite a variety of federal and state programs, most inner cities lost jobs at an alarming rate.

"Nearly half of the country's 82 largest municipalities lost jobs from 1995 to 2003, according to a new Harvard University study. By comparison, only one of the surrounding metropolitan areas lost jobs during the same period.

A separate analysis by The Associated Press found that most inner cities targeted by the federal government's primary urban economic programs lost jobs as well."

Full Story: Inner Cities Continue to Hemorrhage Jobs
Source: Yahoo! News, November 28, 2005
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Misleading burb, misleading story

Submitted by Michael Lewyn on Wed, 11/30/2005 - 09:34.

How is "nearly half" the nation's largest cities (the number used in the story) losing some jobs the same as "most inner cities" losing jobs? "Nearly half" or even "half" is less than "most" in the English language as written in the United States.

And what does it mean to say a place is losing jobs "at an alarming rate"? What's a "non-alarming" rate?

Substantively, the story is strange because the measuring period (1995-2003) is a bit unfair -in 2003 the economy was still recovering from the 2000-02 recession. I suspect if that the story had used 1995-2001 as the baseline period, or 1992-2003 (from recession to recession) the results would be somewhat rosier.

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The areas where we have severe blight and indications of more blight to come are basically the same as they ever were. How in the world are we ever going to move our community development selves into an alternative future that thinks differently about the challenges we face in our cities and low-income suburban and rural communities?
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