By Eleanor Patten
Nearly a quarter of the poverty within the United States is located in inner cities. The Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC) is a Boston based research organization making strides to address poverty in the inner city through economic development. The ICIC was founded by Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter after his research displayed the unrecognized potential of inner cities. Even though inner cities across America contain typical issues found with extreme poverty, i.e. unemployment, lack of resources, failing infrastructure, Porter was able to identify five competitive advantages within the inner city:
- Proximity to transportation hubs
- A ready pool of potential employees
- Market demand from local residents
- Locations adjacent to central business districts
- Potential integration with regional specialities
ICIC was created to help leverage these advantages to lift the inner cities to be profit centers rather than areas of high poverty. The ICIC supports inner cities through their 5Cs model which supports organizations with Capacity, Coaching, Capital, Connections, and Contracts. These five Cs manifest themselves in various ways across multiple cities. The ICIC implements this model across multiple branches. These branches include a research and advisory branch, a reporting branch, and a branch focusing on urban business. Each of these elements of the ICIC contributes to the success of the urban inner city.
To provide some context into the work of the ICIC, The Research and Advisory branch of ICIC examines resilience, economic development, cluster growth, and evaluation. This allows the ICIC to set priorities, provide recommendations, and be an authority on concepts surrounding inner cities. For example, the ICIC has been working in Toronto to determine the level of resiliency in terms of food and food security. Climate change presents challenges globally to food security but inner cities, who have existing food systems issues, are particularly vulnerable. ICIC’s report addresses issues such as flooding, heat increases, and ice storms to help Toronto prepare for the worst. This type of research is then presented to city councils to support their policy with evidence based research. Mayors such as Boston’s Thomas Menino and New Jersey’s Cory Booker have used the work of ICIC to inform policy decisions and meet the needs of constituents.
The ICIC is a multi-faceted organization that demonstrates the power of data and information in social change. ICIC is a refreshing addition to the social enterprise space because it is more support system than enterprise and provides much needed measurement and implementation that can be applied to many sectors beyond the inner city.
To learn more about ICIC’s work please visit: http://icic.org/
For any new graduates or alumni looking for a career opportunity, ICIC is hiring: http://icic.org/about/careers/
