Making Connections in the Metropolitan Age

Mr. Katz talked about the challenge of place-based and neighborhood-based strategies in a world of decentralizing opportunity and concentrated poverty. He presented the big picture from the 2000 census as follows:

• Cities are generally coming back but are losing ground as jobs and people and opportunity decentralize.
• Suburbs are changing markedly as they become more socially diverse and evolve into centers of employment.
• Because of persistent patterns of segregation and concentrated poverty, a spatial mismatch exists between the neighborhoods of low-skilled, minority workers and the sites of entry level jobs.

In most metropolitan areas, neither government programs nor nonprofit institutions have altered the way they do business in response to these broad market and demographic trends.